


The Monument of Memory

by J_Baillier



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angst, BAMF John, Don't copy to another site, Family Drama, Grieving John Watson, Guilt, Hypnosis, John Watson Loves Sherlock Holmes, John is a battle onion of the obtuse infantry division, M/M, Murder, Post-Episode: s04e03 The Final Problem, Protective John Watson, Psychological Trauma, Sherlock Holmes is a Bit Not Good, Teamwork, Trust Issues, but everything is so damned complicated, casefic, mentalism, sherrinford
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-29
Updated: 2019-09-01
Packaged: 2020-03-27 15:17:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 79,663
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19015519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/J_Baillier/pseuds/J_Baillier
Summary: A genius traumatised by a past he's only beginning to recall. The psychopath sister that time forgot. A missing woman and a mentalist who may or may not be a murderer. And, in the middle of it all, stands John Watson.





	1. Debt

**Author's Note:**

> Could also be summarised as _J. Baillier fixes season 4_.

 

_**Love never dies a natural death. It dies of blindness and errors and betrayals. It dies because we don't know how to replenish its source.** _

**― Anaïs Nin**

 

_**If a man knows not what harbour he seeks, any wind is the right wind.** _

**— Seneca**

 

 

* * *

 

 

"You're insane. _Both_ of you," John spits the words out like trying to rid himself of a bad taste.

A butler opens the door and peers in even though, in this particular room of the Diogenes Club, speaking is allowed. John glares at the man until he closes the door again, backing out of the doorway with his head bowed politely.

John has never bowed down to Mycroft Holmes and gone are the days when he occasionally bothered to be polite to the man. Sherlock may have defended his older brother to his parents, but John still has a few bones to pick with him. While it may be true that the man,  _in general_ , has Sherlock's best interest at heart, he makes mistakes. And compromises. And is prone to putting the Crown above family, as much as he tries to pretend otherwise.

_He sold Sherlock's secrets to Moriarty. Not once, but twice._

Mycroft leans slightly back in his chocolate brown Chesterfield chair, trying to appear superior in that stuffy way of his.

John stands by the seat he'd been offered, arms crossed tightly.

"Just… just tell me _why_ ," John demands. "He can't visit Sherrinford without your permission, without the arrangements you have to authorise for transport. You _know_ what Eurus can do, what she almost did. You can't be naive enough to think there's some chance of reconciliation between the two of them. She's a fucking serial killer, Mycroft. A psychopath. They don't benefit from talk therapy — it only makes them worse. And Sherlock has no training whatsoever in trying to help someone like that."

"I owe it to him."

"No. You owe it to him to continue protecting him. Didn't you dedicate your entire career to that? What makes you think she wouldn't instantly use whatever black bloody magic she possesses to turn him into a weapon against you, against me, against anyone and everyone who so much as looks at her crooked?"

"Her curiosity. That's the leverage we have to stay in control."

_About what? Sherlock?_

John scoffs. "Is it guilt why you're letting him visit, hmm? First, you spend decades trying to keep her existence secret, but when you think you suddenly have some penance to do for your fuck-ups, then it's suddenly Sunday afternoon violin recitals?"

Irritation sketches lines on Mycroft's forehead. "Sherlock forced my hand with the stunt the two of you pulled; I could no longer conceal her existence––"

"That _stunt we pulled_ was to prove that she existed. _She_ forced your hand, not Sherlock."

"She's not the same, John. Severe damage was inflicted on both sides by the events at Sherrinford, and after Victor's funeral, she has refused to co-operate with anyone but Sherlock. In a way, being the only one who knew what happened to Victor was her last leverage to gain Sherlock's acceptance. The power balance has shifted."

John grabs the whisky tumbler from a side table next to Mycroft's chair and empties it. The burn of it down his throat offers little additional fortitude, but then again, he's angry enough not to need it.

"Are you sure it's not an act, her mutism and the depression?" John presses. "She could just be stringing Sherlock and everybody else along. She's not some misunderstood victim; she doesn't even get what she's done wrong. She just wants to play games."

_Just like Moriarty. Which of them taught the other?_

The memory of all the deeply personal things John had told Eurus as part of their so-called therapy sessions still smarts. He's been fearing that she might share some of what he'd said about Sherlock during his Sunday visits with the man himself. Against that backdrop, John isn't mournful at all over the fact that she isn't talking much to anyone.

"She never appeared to attempt to manipulate you directly," Mycroft points out. "I find that noteworthy. Didn't seem to consider you a very formidable enemy."

"Posing as my fucking therapist doesn't count, then?"

"I understand your animosity, as I am aware that your reticence is a logical consequence of being a family man, but I am asking both as a patriot and as… _family_ , to try to see this from Sherlock's perspective. If we could find a way for her to co-operate again, to channel her intellect more constructively, that might prevent further containment issues at Sherrinford, perhaps lessen the risk for Sherlock."

"No wonder you gave him visiting rights. You want his help to use her abilities again."

"I have asked no such thing from him. It was Sherlock who came to me, asking for permission."

John bites the inside of his cheek. _Sherlock asking for things from Mycroft? Sherlock doesn't ask, he just… does things. All this goes to show he's still pretty rattled and thus in no state to talk to her._

"He isn't objective about her, the danger she poses. He can't be," John argues. "Sherlock hasn't asked for my help with her, and I haven't offered, and I can't condone any of this without any proof that she isn't just going to try to destroy him again."

"Have you asked yourself why he doesn't seek your support?" Mycroft asks calmly.

John exhales. He will freely admit that things at home seem to be in a frustrating stalemate, and he strongly suspects that visiting Eurus is doing more harm than good. He could hope that Sherlock would at some point give up and judge the whole endeavour pointless, but he _knows_ the man. Sherlock never gives up when there's a mystery to be solved. Telling him not to go see his sister would never work. Forbid Sherlock from doing something and, like the average five-year-old, doing precisely that will become his obsession.

"Send me," John suddenly says without thinking. "Let me see her. You know how bad Sherlock is at reading people. Let me talk to her, see if I think there's any benefit for either of them in Sherlock's visits."

The idea seems futile the second the words are out. If Sherlock is having trouble getting through to Eurus, what chance could John ever have?

Mycroft leans back in his chair, fingers steepled below his chin in a pose very reminiscent of his younger brother. "I am naturally worried about her motives, and no, I don't trust Sherlock to be able to analyse her behaviour."

The older Holmes hums thoughtfully, eyes narrowed and focused past John. "We cannot extend knowledge of her existence to any additional individuals, but you are a doctor, familiar with past trauma through your military career and your own experiences. You know Sherlock, and you're intimately familiar with the events of late at Sherrinford and Musgrave Hall."

He fixes his keen, calculating gaze on John. "Out of all possibilities, you are the logical one. Though I do wonder about _your_ motives, John. After what happened, I would have suspected you would want never to see her again."

"No, I don't want to see her, and I don't want Sherlock to see her. That's the point. But, right now I don't have what he'd call sufficient data to drive home that point with him. I can't tell him to stay away if I can't explain why."

John readjusts his stance. He's clasped his hands behind his back without realising. Falling back on old habits is reassuring.

There's a lot he should have done differently. There are mistakes he's made. Sherlock risked everything for his safety and his happiness with Mary. Perhaps it's time to repay in kind.

"Send me," John says with a determined sniff. "I need to talk to her."

Mycroft tilts his chin back, regards him with the same appraising sweep of a glance as during their first meeting. "On your head, be it." He dabs his lips with the napkin which had sat under his whisky glass. "Arrangements will be made."

John turns to leave.

"Will you inform Sherlock of your plan?" Mycroft inquires, craning his neck so that he can see the doorway better. "I think he's currently quite… disapproving of secrecy, especially when the purpose is to protect him."

"I will tell him after," John says. He has no idea if it's the right decision, but he's used to that by now. Since that phone call, watching Sherlock standing on the Barts roof, no choice he has made has felt like the right one, anyway.

 

 

**_— FOUR_ _WEEKS LATER —_**

Doubt and hesitation plague John on the elevator ride and short walk down the corridor into the bowels of the newly constructed fourth underground level of Sherrinford. It's not the heavily armed guard escorting him that causes such a worry, but his precise destination.

Why is he assuming Eurus will even be willing to talk to him? According to what he's heard from Sherlock, she has lapsed into what mostly resembles catatonia, willing only to communicate with Sherlock when he visits. She talks, but what she's attempting to communicate is difficult for even her younger brother to decipher. Riddles, rhymes, fragments of memories, cryptic demands. Has she truly lost the ability to communicate coherently, or just the willingness to do so?

It's not as though she has a lot to bide her time with down here except to hatch insane schemes. Is it all a game?

John slides the Mycroft-issued pass card through an electronic lock and then steps in front of a retinal scanner on the wall. After the screen flashes green, what looks like a solid concrete wall concealing this wing of the compound from curious eyes slides inside its adjoining wall section, revealing a large antechamber with no less than six additional guards. The one assigned to escort him has stepped back into the corridor.

Mycroft, and whoever he takes his orders from clearly aren't taking any chances with Eurus. Not that they did so before, but not even the former, quite impressive cell in what used to be the lowest level of the Sherrinford compound had been capable of keeping her contained. As long as there were humans around to manipulate, she was a flight risk.

There is no mobile reception down here. No electronics are allowed. The guards carry live rounds instead of tranquilising ones, and they now have earplugs.

One of them steps aside and gestures to the middle of the room, where a circular object the size of a shower cubicle stands. It's a body scanner, the likes of which John has seen at some airports. Another thing familiar from airline transit is an Itemizer machine in the corner. John wonders if its acquisition is somehow related to Sherlock's visits; Mycroft would never allow him to enter these rooms while under the influence of something that could cloud his judgment. The first time Sherlock had encountered his adult sister, he'd been high as a kite, well on his way to acute kidney failure. No wonder he had not been able to deduce her true identity.

 _Curiosity_. That's what Mycroft thinks is the insurance John has against being turned into a thrall. Curiosity about Sherlock, since he's likely a more objective source of data regarding the man than Sherlock himself. Curiosity about… whatever had led her to pose as John's therapist. All she had seemed interested in was his relationship with Sherlock. Did she see John as a stand-in for Victor Trevor? Was he just another intruder to her?

Fear prickles John's neck and pulls his spine straight as he steps into the scanner. He won't be safe here. All he has to rely on is an assumption that Eurus may consider him more useful alive and in charge of his own faculties. Manipulating him will not yield honest answers about anything. He may have to remind her of that. Repeatedly.

_Sherlock would be the first to tell me I'm an idiot compared to any Holmes sibling. How am I going to succeed in what he's failed at?_

Still, he needs to try, because he's here for Sherlock. He's here to find out her motives, and to give her _a warning_. She may heed it if she wants to but failing to do so will risk her brittle relationship with Sherlock. She seems to want one, but why? Does she want a plaything or a friend? A brother or a puppet? A victim, or someone to challenge her? Psychopaths don't care about forgiveness so that can't be it.

He has liedto Sherlock about where he is, even though they had solemnly promised there would be no more secrets between them. He is doing all this because he knows that Sherlock will not give up his treacherous mission regarding Eurus until something bad happens. And John is fucking done with Sherlock being the one who pays the price for the tragedies of others.

There are things John has read behind the lines Eurus had drawn on the map of their lives, and he's confident that she would not have built such an elaborate scheme if it weren't for a desire to reconnect with _her favourite_. Those are Sherlock's words, quoted verbatim while John shivered under a shock blanket in the back of Lestrade's car. Her words, repeated by the one she had tried to harm.

_The one she tried to murder, because of what?_

According to Mycroft, Eurus, age only five, had come very close to succeeding in erasing Sherlock from her life. It's likely that the carbon monoxide poisoning as part of the smoke inhalation had contributed to Sherlock's memory loss. To Sherlock — of all people — being acutely aware of having lost such a big piece of the puzzle of his own identity must be unbearable. And that is one more reason for John to be here: he wants to do everything in his power to keep that pain from getting worse. Sherlock has been through enough during the past few years, but he's never going to say _stop, enough_.

John's train of thought is interrupted when the upwards-facing palm of a guard directs him to step through the opposite end of the scanner. It must mean that nothing untoward having been discovered on his person. Another retinal scanner follows, and a fingerprint scanner as well. Only then can he scan his pass card.

 _Not even nuclear launch codes are this heavily guarded_ , John thinks as a door slides open.

Had he not been here before, he'd think it all rather ludicrous: metres of concrete concealing just one woman from the world.

He steels himself and walks in. _Soldiers today_ , he'd told Sherlock, but he doesn't feel like one today. Even if he held a live grenade in his hand, he'd feel unarmed.

The room is quite similar to Eurus' old one. A utilitarian bed, a bench and a table are the only pieces of furniture. Some additional items have been added, but they do little to make the room appear cosy. John is reminded of zoos where random objects thrown into pens are supposed to entertain the animals, yet they do little to conceal the fact that what's going on is not the natural order of things. It's a prison, a cage, an isolation room all wrapped into one.

In the middle of the room stands Eurus Holmes, her back to the door, violin held in her small, delicate fingers as she plays a mournful melody with illogically bold strokes. She's dressed exactly as she had been during John's earlier visit in this place: in a baggy, nondescript two-piece outfit distantly reminiscent of a martial arts training outfit.

John knows she plays the violin hours a day. Sherlock says that while she knows she has outstanding technical skills, she's also very aware of a deficiency that separates her from proper musicians: emotion.

 _'I can tell if it's right, but not if it's beautiful_ ,' she had told Sherlock. When Sherlock had recounted their conversation in the car back to London, a cold hand of guilt had wrapped itself around John's heart over suspecting — even for a moment — that Sherlock might actually be what he claimed: a soulless sociopath.

His beliefs had wavered, once. And for two years, he believed that it had cost him Sherlock's life.

 _'You machine_ '.

He shouldn't dwell on this now. He needs to be on his guard.

_Will she talk to me?_

Maybe Mycroft is right, and her curiosity is the only leverage he has. Time to find out.

"You can put that away since I'm not going to be playing along," John says, the echo of his voice ricocheting between the cold concrete walls.

Eurus pivots on her heel, her soft-soled shoes making no sound on the industrial-looking grey carpet on which she's standing. Her hair is in a ponytail, neatly brushed. If it weren't for her odd outfit, she'd look out of place in the cell — she'd look like someone who belongs on the stage of a concert hall.

Everything in her chamber looks cold, harsh, utilitarian, made from materials which are inflammable, can't be torn to pieces. Nothing that could be used as a weapon. Even her clothes look as though they have been created from the same fabric, one similar to what is used to create sails.

A ceiling light reflects on the armoured glass just so that her face is momentarily blurred as she takes a step towards John.

John stifles an urge to take a step back towards the doorway. He doesn't. Instead, he squares his shoulders.

Does Sherlock feel like this when standing in this very spot? Or has he ever been as frightened of her as others are? _They shared chips, for God's sake_.

Sherlock doesn't share meals with people he doesn't know or trust. At least that's what John wants to believe.

"Did Sherlock send you?" Eurus asks, curiosity and delight floating in the high pitch of her voice. There's something in her intonation that's always slightly off, as though she's trying too hard to sound natural. It's eerily similar to Sherlock playacting at crime scenes. There's no way of knowing how she actually feels about the surprise of John standing before her. Mycroft had promised John the element of surprise, but had she still somehow deduced his arrival?

 _Is_ there genuine emotion somewhere down there, or is it just layers and layers of deliberate subterfuge above an empty vessel, like the clothes on a paper doll? Has there ever been a genuine way in which she interacts with others, or has that been lost in the countless, labyrinthine dimensions that comprise what must be a Mind Solar System to Sherlock's Mind Palace? During their earlier visit to Sherrinford, her behaviour vacillated between calculated ruthlessness and an almost childlike confusion and disappointment.

Eurus could just be a genius sociopath with very few other layers to her personality. Nothing less, nothing more. There's a particular flavour of evil written all over her actions that rivals most of the adversaries John and Sherlock have encountered in the Work.

_Yes, even Moriarty._

"No," John says. "He didn't send me."

He waits for the obvious follow-up question — _why are you here, then_ — but it never comes. Either she has formulated her own theory, or she thinks it beneficial not to confront him just yet.

"How long have you lived here?" John asks, trying to sound light and conversational. He then wants to bite his tongue because were Sherlock here, he'd berate John for such pointless chitchat. Is it small talk, if he genuinely wants to know? Mycroft must have mentioned it at some point, but John doesn't have a Holmes eidetic memory.

"Since I was ten."

Where had she been before that, before the fire which her parents believed to have led to her demise? John doesn't ask, because he doesn't want to think of this woman as a little girl, a tiny child such as Rosie. He doesn't want to believe that some things cannot be prevented by love, by gentleness, by a parent doing things right.

 _I certainly haven't done everything right_.

Eurus looks expectant. "Did Mycroft send you?" she asks again, and John hears another question there, unspoken: ' _is this a game_?' Judging by what Sherlock has told him about his visits, it seems that Eurus is trying to make up for a lot of lost childhood time. _Is it always playtime?_

John hasn't seen any pictures of her as a child. Maybe it's for the best. Since he's become a parent, news reports of abused and refugee children have plucked his heartstrings more violently than he could ever have imagined possible.

"No. Sherlock doesn't know I've come to visit, and I'm here because I asked Mycroft to be let in." _That should pique her interest._

The door behind them opens, and a guard brings in a folding chair. John thanks him, barely taking his eyes off the woman on the other side of the glass. John wonders if the guards draw straws on who has to enter.

Eurus hurries to place the violin on a leather-covered square in the corner of the room. It looks like a footstool. Leather seems like a logical choice as a furnishing material, since it's next to impossible to rip into useful shreds.

There are faded self-harming scars on her forearms from the time she had escaped and interjected herself into their lives. They're unmistakeable — a neat row of horizontal lines, anguish written on skin to rid herself of it. Sherlock had picked up on them quickly, even in the terrible state in which he'd been.

Why had she resorted to cutting herself? Mycroft had told John she hadn't done that before. Had the outside world proved too much, or was it part of her Faith Smith disguise?

She catches John staring and walks as close to the glass as she is allowed, presenting with a supplicatory gesture her milky-white forearms which never get any sun. "Do you want to have a closer look, Doctor?"

"That's not necessary."

"You're Mycroft's hired help, then."

"I told you I'm not his errand boy. I'm here to visit, just this once," John says, with a warning in his tone.

Why did he say that? Is he trying not to disappoint her, to let her down gently, to prevent her from assuming she has gained another regular appointment with a member of the outside world?

_What does it matter if she's disappointed?_

Eurus almost got him killed, almost made his child an orphan, nearly drove Sherlock over the edge, almost got Mycroft killed. Mycroft, who must have felt burdened by her existence for a long time, even though she has been useful to his career. Even though the older Holmes does not seem very prone to what the brothers call sentiment, this is still his little sister.

Sherlock thinks she needs redemption and help. That she needs saving.

 _Saving from herself. By Sherlock_.

John shakes his head in silent disbelief. He doesn't doubt Sherlock's determination or his compassion; it's just that the task he has chosen might prove too much for anyone. John wants to negotiate an end to the debt Sherlock thinks he still owes this deceptively delicate-looking creature.

"You're being dull," Eurus says, but doesn't step away, simply slides her sleeves down to cover her arms. "They come to stare at me sometimes, new staff members. Is that why you're here? You want to look, now that it's safe? To feel like you're _on top_?"

There it is, that strange dichotomy of her — a monster and a victim, a child and a woman inhabiting the same corporeal form.

"No," John says and sits down in the uncomfortable folding chair. "I'm here to tell you a story."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The title comes from Florence + The Machine's song "[Various Storms And Saints"](https://genius.com/Florence-the-machine-various-storms-and-saints-lyrics).
> 
> Beta work for this story was carried out by 7PercentSolution.


	2. The client

_**I never meant to hurt you** _  
_**I just gave in to it** _

**_— Susan McKeown_ **

 

Eurus ignores his promise of a story with a blank look.

"Does Sherlock remember me, from when we were little?" she asks. "He won't say."

"He's trying to. I think he always had bits and pieces that didn't make sense, but nothing conclusive until now. He's been looking at family photos and what little film bits there are from those days; Mycroft had removed the albums from your parents' home under the guise of sparing their feelings."

Those albums are now spread all over Sherlock's bedroom. He keeps complaining that, instead of helping, they might be creating a false sense of recollection. Some of the things he thinks have come back to him might simply be his own imagination combining those photos with his desire to make sense of his life. It tears at John to watch him struggle.

"He remembers Victor," she accuses as though John should be held accountable for that fact.

"It doesn't make him more important," John replies. What Sherlock now remembers makes Victor _innocent_ , but John doubts making that point would get him anywhere with someone like Eurus. "We often remember really insignificant details and forget important things. Memory works a bit randomly."

"We don't forget _people_. I never do." Eurus now sounds petulantly angry.

Anyone would be a little offended that someone had replaced all recollections of them with something else, a placeholder, or just empty air. Aware that traumatic amnesia was rare, John had dug around in the medical resources he had at his disposal at work for an explanation of how Sherlock could have forgot a sibling. While rare, it did turn out to be possible; _trust Sherlock to be the exception to the rules, the one to accidentally do something astonishing_. Maybe his exceptional command over his memories now, allowing him to use his Mind Palace so efficiently, had protected him even as a child.

And, he wasn't the only exceptional child in the family. Very few people have a sister like Eurus Holmes; if Mycroft was to be believed, _nobody_ except him and Sherlock had such an 'era-defining genius' as a sibling.

"Don't take it personally; he's even deleted the existence of the solar system," John tells her.

She blinks, slipping into what looks like deepening disinterest.

"And even if he once wanted to forget, nowadays I can promise you he thinks about you _a lot_ ," John offers. _Too much? That's what I'm here to find out_. "Speaking of…"

\-----------?-----------¿-----------?-----------  


**_— 221B Baker Street, London —  
— Three weeks earlier —_ **

 

Sherlock was pacing and complaining. This, in itself, was not unusual, but the subject of his rant was a novel one, at least in the entire history of his and John's acquain--- friends--- relationsh--- _whatever_.

"Since composing music is not something she does, she has to understand that we have to make do with duetting the works of others if we're to play together. ' _Play you, play you'_ \---- I don't know what she _means_ most of the time! Everything is always about her in some way she may not even intend for me to understand." Sherlock's fingertips slipped into his curls, tugging momentarily to ground himself in the maelstrom of his frustration. He pinched his lids closed, his mouth an angry line.

John frowned, while idly straightening a toppled-over stack of Sherlock's old case notes littering the sitting room floor. "And I always thought Mycroft was the cryptic one."

"So did I!" Sherlock exclaimed and continued his circular route between the window and the kitchen table with a frown dipping the skin between his eyes into a V.

John's brows rose when a red dot flashed on the baby monitor on the coffee table, but the device emitted no sound. Adapting to the alertness required of a newly minted parent had come easy after endless nights taking call at hospitals, equally endless nights in Afghanistan, and a career of catering to the impulsive whims of a consulting detective.

Rosie was on her nap in Sherlock's room — he'd insisted John use it freely for this purpose. The baby monitor signal was unreliable upstairs even though the package had claimed this model had excellent reception. Sherlock, who had done the research and purchased the model, had even gone back to the shop to shout at the clerk about it. Sometimes it angered John, the way Sherlock seemed to be more decisive than him when it came to such things. Whatever challenges Rosie could throw John's way in terms of sleep deprivation and a need for constant vigilance, he was already battle-trained. As for everything else, he still felt painfully ill-equipped. Most of the time, he just wanted to postpone all decisions, to push it all away. Sherlock's presence and his willingness to share the parental burden was a welcome relief, even if John often felt conflicted because of it, felt like a failure for not sorting everything out himself.

  
\-----------?-----------¿-----------?-----------  
  


These things John had thought about himself as a father, things he still keeps thinking when it comes to his daughter, he doesn't share with Eurus. His story pauses as the emotions flood in, and he takes a moment, feeling withered under her Holmesian scrutiny.

Maybe he'll never quite forgive himself for pushing even his own daughter away after Mary died. She'd lived with Molly for three months. Three months of a stage of her life where she was learning so much, forming essential bonds with the people around her. He'd never said sorry to her. The words wouldn't come, and they'd be more for him than her. But the gesture still felt important, and he felt terribly unavailing for not being able to execute it.

_I talked to Sherlock's gravestone. I talked to Mary for months. I'm better at talking to the dead than I am the living._

He cleared his throat and continued his story.

  
\-----------?-----------¿-----------?-----------

  
  
"Eurus can't know how to deal with you as an adult," John told Sherlock, picking up one of Rosie's toys from the floor right before Sherlock's pacing would have made the man step on it. "The last she's spent time with you was when you were tiny, and nobody interacts with her voluntarily. It's going to take time." _Assuming it ever happens,_ John thought to himself, easily aligning with Mycroft's scepticism.

This is what Sherrinford's former forensic psychiatrist — who Sherlock had tracked down — had said about her: _'she's a deeply disturbed young woman who does not fit the parameters of any single severe mental disorder_ '. The psychiatrist had spent a year in the facility, attempting to study her and devise a treatment plan, and carried a collection of battle scars from those times. Literally.

"But that's what it's all about, really, it _has_ to be," Sherlock announced; "What happened when we were children, I mean. That's when it all went wrong. And I can't remember any of it for certain," Sherlock spat out, stopped on his tracks and dug his fingers into his unruly hair again as if to physically wrench out the memories eluding him.

"If there was a way to change the way someone interprets things and acts on them, some manner in which to make her want to solve things differently, we could stop going around in these bloody circles," he finally concluded, not sounding very hopeful.

"It's called therapy," John pointed out and snatched a newspaper off the coffee table to skim through it. Settling into what had again, after a long absence from Baker Street, become _his_ chair, he continued: "They tried that on psychopaths, and it didn't work."

At first, he'd hesitated to use the word in front of Sherlock, but he didn't seem to mind. Clinical psychopathy was the only thing on which all the experts who'd ever evaluated seemed to agree.

"That's because most therapists are idiots," Sherlock said and flounced onto the sofa, stretching his form across it. The hem of his dressing down slid over the edge to hang towards the floor.

The sight was so comfortingly familiar that it bloomed into an ache in John's guts. It was a mixture of relief, a protective sort of worry, but regret as well. So much of it, in fact, that he preferred not to dwell on it. Still, that undercurrent of emotion made it hard for him to enjoy Sherlock's company in a relaxed manner. He was wondering if Sherlock had spotted his unease after he'd moved back in.

"No, it needs to be someone _better_ than some ham-fisted professional," Sherlock insisted, "someone who knows her. Someone who could outwit her into thinking differently."

To John, this sounded as though Sherlock continued to consider signing up for the job, but then again, Eurus had proved she could outsmart both his brothers if need be. "You can't really fix a personality disorder, especially one as profound as psychopathy."

Mycroft had imposed all manner of interventions already. To John Sherlock's little sister seemed like pretty much a lost cause, but he wasn't going to make Sherlock explode at him for saying so. He'd made that mistake once, and it had been too soon after Victor's remains had been found.

Eurus had done enough damage. John was unwilling to let her play any more games with the people close to him. Avoidance seemed like the best strategy, but that would never be the Sherlock way.

Even though she must have occupied Sherlock's thoughts a great deal, he rarely opened up about her like this; it was obvious he was getting extremely frustrated with her. He had directed his frightening, single-minded bloodhound focus on the project of his sister, and hadn't even been taking cases lately. Eurus was all he was focusing on, all on which he was expending his considerable intellectual prowess. Every week, he flew in to see her and every week, he came back from Sherrinford frustrated, disheartened and confounded by the mystery he has not been able to solve. Sherlock clearly felt responsible for her, for the way she had ended up, for the directions her life had taken. John thought it a bit unfair since the last he'd seen of her had been when they'd both been children. On the other hand, Eurus' actions were ample evidence what some children were capable of doing.

Judging by what Sherlock had told John of their interactions that night when he'd been high and she'd come to him, dripping wet and pretending to be someone else, she had shammed well at being quite the average human. Is that what Sherlock wants if that's all she can provide — a puppet of a sister, a play of a happy siblinghood? She could and would pretend for him, of this John had no doubt, but what would be in it for her?

He physically shook his head, hiding his expression behind The Times. _No. Sherlock wouldn't stand for such a charade._ It felt evident to John that Sherlock wanted whatever he was looking for in her to be real.

Sherlock, whose restlessness had driven him back on his feet after mere minutes on the sofa, dropped into his own armchair, practically bouncing off the seat to perch on the backrest. "I need a strategy."

"Sorry, can't help you there," John told him and snapped his newspaper into submission.

 

\-----------?-----------¿-----------?-----------  
  


"Who is looking after the baby while you're here?" Eurus asks suddenly, derailing John's train of thought.

He's instantly suspicious, wondering if it's safe to disclose anything about Rosie. She's well aware of her since they had, of course, discussed her in their sham relationship as a client and a therapist. It was apparent children did not interest Eurus, at least not the children of others.

John had also told Jenny that he had a child — Jenny being, of course, the woman he'd come close to shagging. The woman on the bus, the one who oddly reminded him of Sherlock, a fact which he had adamantly refused to meditate on during their text message courtship.

There was no Jenny, just like there was no therapist and no woman in red. All just mirages cast by Eurus. Even Sherlock had been fooled. That's why John has to assume she has not stopped scheming, has not stopped trying to orchestrate some grand plan. John just can't believe she has spent all these years hatching up the batshit crazy circus she had orchestrated just to reach out to Sherlock. There could well be other things she's after, bigger plans for which the spectacle at Sherrinford had just been a smokescreen. 

Above all, John wouldn't put it past her to still want to remove all other people from Sherlock's life except for her.

"Today, she's with Molly. Tomorrow, Sherlock." John had claimed to be going to a medical conference and had conveniently and deliberately forgotten his mobile phone on the kitchen table so that Sherlock couldn't track him. He has no reason to believe Sherlock had doubted his story, but then again, he was the most observant man on the planet and had always insisted that John was a terrible liar.

He and Sherlock had promised never again to keep secrets from each other, and he's breaking it right now, but the die is cast, and he must stomp down on the rising guilt. He has to believe that he's doing the right thing here. In a way, Sherlock should be happy that he's making an effort, too, in perhaps helping Sherlock and Eurus understand one another.

"Is it safe to leave her with Sherlock?" Eurus asks.

John does not believe even for a minute that she cares about the wellbeing on his daughter. No, like always, this is about her brother. Her scepticism echoes that of Mycroft's original suspicions about Sherlock's abilities to care for an infant: ' _Are you even capable of sustaining focus and not forgetting all about her once something more interesting comes along_?' Mycroft had asked when visiting 221B after John and Rosie had moved in.

Sherlock had slammed his bedroom door in Mycroft's face to signal how mature and communicative an adult he could be when he wanted to.

Still, John does not hesitate when he answers: "Absolutely. She couldn't be safer than when she is with him." Having as a Godfather a man willing to die for those he loves can't be the wrong choice. Besides, Sherlock can well sustain interest in Rosie because he genuinely seems to enjoy her company, mapping out her development and attempting to teach her things. He is even getting better at doing the latter in an age-appropriate way. _'No crime scene photographs until she's at least twelve_ ,' John had told him.

Sherlock calls Rosie _Watson_ , and John loves that, loves to hear his own name spoken with such fondness. The same tone is ingrained in how Sherlock says 'John', but there's still a polite reservedness there that Sherlock does not employ when doting John's daughter with attention. Sometimes John wonders if Sherlock is trying to tell him something but always aborts at the last minute because things are still raw between them. They're still reeling from everything that's happened, still recovering.

Sherlock's return. Mary. Magnussen. Eurus. They need to restore equilibrium, not go out exploring the unknown. Rosie needs stability. Hell, he and Sherlock need stability after having their lives turned upside down so many times.

"What is he like at home?" Eurus asks, frowning.

"Smart, but you knew that." John didn't know what else to say, what to reveal. He suddenly felt very protective about the brittle domesticity they were rediscovering.

"That's debatable."

"Put any ten people in a room, apart from you and Mycroft, and he's going to be the smartest," John defends. "He's honest. Lazy. Never does any housework. Endless energy, always has some project going, loves his work and gets so damned bored between cases. He's… happy nowadays, I think, except for when he's in one of his moods."

This is an exaggeration. Sherlock is _happy enough_ — or at least would be if visiting Eurus wasn't dragging his mood down in the dumps.

" _One of his moods_?" Eurus parrots. It seems to baffle her; this idea that Sherlock's happiness is not a constant. How envious is she of his life? What kind of a little boy does she remember? An always content one?

Boy does she _not_ know Sherlock.

John leans back in his chair. "He needs to be entertained. He needs stuff to do, doesn't deal well with idleness. He's funny, often unintentionally so. Interesting. He's _fun_. He gets mixed up in things and people that make life a bit more unpredictable. Not that he has any routine to start with," John adds. Everything he has said seems to fall short of the big picture somehow. As always, Sherlock defies explanation and description. Just like John's relationship with him.

"People like James Moriarty?" Eurus offers with the sudden enthusiasm of someone who's about to reveal a surprise.

There's something there that John does want to know, questions he wants to ask, but he elects to gauge the playing field a bit more before opening the lid of that particular Pandora's Box.

"Exactly like James Moriarty," he confirms. The name leads him to consider another important attribute of Sherlock's. "Sherlock is loyal. He'll do anything for the people he cares about. He's a very good friend."

That last sentence brings a flash of anger into Eurus' relentless gaze.

"Go back to your story," she commands in a petulant tone. It appears that she matches Sherlock in quicksilver mood changes.

To encourage John further, she sits down cross-legged on the cold, stone-tiled floor, scooting closer to the glass separating them.

John relishes the realisation that he appears to have pricked her a bit. For someone who has probably never had a single friend, Sherlock having some must be a touchy subject.

John remembers how Sherlock had once told him that he doesn't have friends, either, just the one. Sherlock's loneliness seems to have taught him to value significantly the fact that such a sordid state of affairs has ended.

 _So_ not a sociopath.

"That's why you pretended to be my therapist," John tells Eurus. "You want to know about him, things that he isn't telling you. You can't expect people to just blurt things out, especially to someone they've only just met or who has not been very nice to them." He sounds as though he's talking to a child, in the tone he sometimes uses to explain to Sherlock afterwards why everyone had been staring at him in shock at a crime scene or a social occasion. He has told both Sherlock and Mycroft how daft the two of them can be despite being geniuses. The same clearly applies to Eurus.

It's as though the pain and suffering of others just escape her, fails to occur to her.

She pulls wings off things and then is dismayed when they suffer and die.

"Why won't he tell me things?" Eurus asks, sounding genuinely perplexed.

"Have you tried asking him things instead of trying to trick him and corner him? In actual, sensible human words? He responds to conversation sometimes, if he wants to."

Eurus is now glaring at him, and John decides this is an excellent time to continue.

 

\-----------?-----------¿-----------?-----------

 

**_— 221B Baker Street, London —  
— Two weeks and five days earlier —_ **

This client did not _'vacillate at the door'_ , as Sherlock liked to describe the process of client indecision, which often took place downstairs. No, this man did not dawdle, did not stop to chat with Mrs Hudson although she was dusting the foyer when he arrived. This man did not enter 221B with the bright-eyed excitement of a fan who has cooked up a fake case as an excuse to try to meet Sherlock. He hadn't called or emailed beforehand, which meant that he was probably convinced Sherlock would take his case.

Such client behaviour usually meant serious business.

"She's my only daughter," the man pleaded after being shown to the solitary kitchen chair moved to the sitting room. _That's where they sit._

He was in his sixties, spectacled and with thick, grey hair. Polite, reserved until the topic of the case came up, at which point he became anxious, his tone urgent and pleading. He wore an old corduroy suit, and nothing about him spelt money. His name was George Cushing.

Sherlock rolled his eyes at such a pleading sentiment, but less severely than he used to. Due to the trying events of late, he seemed to have accepted a modicum of emotion as a necessary part of the lives of him and others.

John coughed and coached an empathetic expression onto his features. He'd been laughing at Sherlock's crap telly commentary before their prospective client had come knocking, and John was hesitant to let go of that relaxing domesticity.

"She doesn't do these things, disappear, I mean. Her studies haven't been going all that well, been thinking about a gap year, but nothing really seemed that amiss. We messaged back and forth just days before," Mr Cushing explained.

"Before what happened?" John inquired. He usually asked the questions while Sherlock's brain was already going a thousand miles a minute: observing, deducing, making sense of microscopic details no one else noticed.

"Before she stopped answering her phone. We went to her place — her wallet and keys and mobile are gone, but calls or messages aren't delivered. Some clothes had disappeared, too, and the rent goes unpaid."

"Have you filed a missing person report?"

"I have, yes, but I _know_ where she is, and the police won't do anything!"

Sherlock drew in a sharp breath and glanced at John, his mouth a tight, irritated line as though John was somehow accountable for this person knocking on their door and wasting his valuable time.

" _Do_ tell," Sherlock snarked, "has anyone told you a mystery requires an actual unknown element to be categorised as such?"

"I _know_ where she is, but I can't get to her. I don't even know if she's still alive."

Sherlock's expression shifted slightly, turning determined and steely — more introspective than actively listening — and John could imagine the cogs in his head beginning to pick up their pace.

"They can do anything, these days, these–– _celebrities_ ," Mr Cushing spat out the word.

John stifled a groan. Was this man a celebrity stalker, after all, perhaps trying to use Sherlock to get access to whoever he was obsessed with?

Their prospective client seemed to calm down a little when John gave him tea.

Sherlock had once voiced astonishment at how well such comforting rituals — he had used the words _cheap psychological tricks_ — worked on the more feeble-minded, but John had taken that statement with a grain of salt since Sherlock was hardly immune to the soothing effects of a good brew himself. A cup of tea was the first thing he'd asked of John when he'd been taken home from the hospital after the Culverton Smith disaster, and not because he was thirsty — he'd had tea less than an hour before being discharged.

He had wanted tea, made by John, even though the bruises on his face hadn't even begun to fade.

"Lucy was considering dropping out of law school; she'd just failed several classes. She saw this guy on TV, and before we realised what was going on, she'd darted off after him, somehow thinking he was going to fix her, make her stop failing."

"What do you mean, _darted_ off?" Sherlock demanded.

"She started going to all his performances instead of attending her classes. And then she said she'd met him backstage and he'd invited him to spend time with him at his estate. Just like that!"

Sherlock raised his hand to halt the man's stuttering, emotional explanation. " _Who?_ "

"That magician guy! He's on TV, even tonight when my daughter is missing, and he has to know something!"

"I don't follow television," Sherlock commented coldly.

John could tell that Mr Cushing was losing the battle for Sherlock's interest.

"Do you mean the one who made Big Ben disappear?" John asked. "And made that woman fire a crossbow at Helen Mirren at a theatre?" He wasn't sure, either, if the celebrity angle made the case more exciting or just riskier and more conducive to public embarrassment.

The theatre assassination thing had all been safely staged, except for the unlucky stooge who had been hypnotised to want to assassinate the Dame. Several newspapers had tried to prove the whole thing was a sham but had failed. It had shown that the right sort of a person could be hypnotised into being an assassin under certain circumstances even if they were not violent people otherwise.

Mr Cushing, perched at the front edge of the client chair, appeared to calm down a little since it was now apparent that at least John had caught on who he was talking about. He whisked off a tear from the edge of his eye. "Alex Mandrake," he said, venom tinting his tone as he pronounced the name with enmity. "It's not his real name. This is what I know: she somehow got invited to his country house, and that's the last we heard of her."

Mr Cushing dug out a mobile phone with a red cover from his breast pocket and showed Sherlock and John a text message that was supposedly from her.

HI DAD HEADING TO SOUTH DOWNS NOW, HOPEFULLY THINGS WILL START GETTING BETTER. LUCE

"Please, Mister Holmes, find her." Mr Cushing pleaded.

John's heart went out to him, but he couldn't help finding the fact of the suspect being a celebrity repellent. The last time Sherlock had gone after someone in the public eye, both their lives had taken some regrettable turns.

 

\-----------?-----------¿-----------?-----------

 

"What did you _do_ to Sherlock?" Eurus asks, sounding mesmerized. "It must've been you." She touches her brow as if to point out stitches that aren't there. She must have picked something up on John's tone when he'd briefly mentioned Culverton.

John hated thinking about what had happened, so he mostly just didn't. He had tried to apologise, once, but Sherlock had evaded as though his apology was pointless and unnecessary and would just embarrass both of them. Things have been hanging heavy between them for a long time, even before what happened with Smith.

Sherlock had still carried a ghost of a bruise on his left cheekbone on the day they arrived at Sherrinford, and his stitches had been visible. Those could've been from anything, really, from a case or even just from colliding with a door. Maybe Eurus had been so preoccupied with the perfect execution of her insane plan that she hadn't even paid much mind to it then.

"What happened between the two of us is beside the point," John says, trying to keep self-loathing out of his tone.

"But you did do something. It's _obvious_ ," Eurus drawls the word in an obvious mockery of her brother, "Did he just _let you_?" she then asks in feigned innocence, a dagger in disguise aimed at John's heart.

"Yes," John says quietly.

This visit is about learning lessons. This one is for him, and it's long overdue. He has known that the full impact of the last year hasn't properly hit him just yet; he's been too busy looking after Rosie, trying to scrape his family life back together. It's easy to dismiss what he did as simply being human, at having limits to his patience like anyone else. It's easy to ignore and explain away, this trait of his until the depths of what he's capable of are right before his eyes.

There's the way he sometimes yelled at Mary so loudly that Rosie was startled and began crying.

There's the way John swung a glass of whiskey at the wall once after Mary told him to calm down or get out, with a waver in her voice. His fucking assassin wife, afraid of _him_.

There's the way he broke Sherlock's nose on the evening when Sherlock came back from the dead. While he could deal with Sherlock being back, he couldn't deal with how it made him feel. How he had always felt but refused to accept.

There's the way he beat Sherlock up in the mortuary because it had been himself John had hated and wanted to hurt but couldn't face up to that.

It's a hard lesson to accept that he does these things. He finds it so easy to demonise others, especially Eurus.

Who's the monster, _now_?

"I hurt him," John breathes out. "And he still risked his life to help me. And he keeps doing that over and over again, risks his life and health and sanity for other people. No matter how badly he gets hurt, this is what he does for those who are important." It feels strange, admitting this to Eurus when he can't get the words out at home. She won't understand. She won't care. Maybe that's why it's safe to make this confession here and now.

Saying the words still drains most of the fight out of him. Before Eurus can interrogate him further, John decides it's time for dinner. _And a breather away from this bloody crypt._


	3. Sleight of Hand

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Betaed by 7PercentSolution.
> 
> I am also greatly indebted to ASilverGirl for the chance to tap into her expertise.

 

> _**Magicians are the most honest people in the world; they tell you they're going to fool you, and then they do it.**  
>  _— James Randi
> 
>  

 

John heads down to the staff canteen for dinner since it's the only option on Sherrinford. The staff present all greet him in a way that signals familiarity. John wonders how they would describe him in their heads — _the one who survived Eurus Holmes? The bloke who lives with The Monster's brother_?

After dinner, the new director of the facility invites him for tea. They sit in a small recreation room with an identical balcony to the chamber where Eurus had shot the previous director's wife. The new head of the facility is a wiry, stern-looking woman with a long career in forensic psychiatry, but despite her credentials, she has not met Eurus face to face even though she has already been here for months. She says she has no intention of direct interaction with her; there are orders in place banning her even from entering that underground level.

John doubts she could offer any truths about Eurus, and Mycroft's strategy is probably wise: they can't be sure that Dr Steinthal wouldn't fall prey to her manipulations as easily as others have.

That reminds John of the burning question at hand: would _he_ know if she was manipulating him? He has little means to protect himself except for a possibly misguided belief that his life and relationship with Sherlock is something she would want to know more about and letting John being honest with her is the only way to gain that knowledge. But, why not just turn him into a thrall and extract that information from his head like ripping off the wings of a butterfly?

Maybe because it's not all in the raw data.

Some of what she may want to learn is written into what John wants to hide, how he reacts. It was not a difficult deduction that she employs a tactic very similar to the one used by Sherlock: she provokes and insults and pokes until something yields or snaps. _You can't do that, if you've completely brainwashed or hypnotised someone, can you? They might still have defences in place you can't breach._

John doesn't stay long with the director; her invitation had been a courtesy, and there is little they have to talk about besides obvious, trite pleasantries.

She doesn't even appear all that interested in Eurus or her siblings. To John, that seems logical since she wasn't present when all hell went loose. To her, Eurus probably seems like someone whose reputation is an exaggeration brought on by staff getting bored in this isolated location. It's hard to believe people like Eurus exist before actually meeting them.s

The same applies to Sherlock, of course. And Mycroft, though the latter doesn't flaunt his intellectual skills as blatantly and publicly as his younger brother.

"Be careful, Doctor Watson," Dr Steinthal tells him as he's leaving. The statement irritates him; _what does she think she knows about her?_ "Having spoken to Mycroft Holmes, I cannot say I see the wisdom of your conversations with her."

Defiance makes him jut up his chin, and he recognises the danger in the longing for vengeance which raises its ugly head. He's kept it at bay so far, but it keeps trying to bleed into his conversations with Eurus. He's tempted to rub it in her face where she is, and where he isn't. _In here. Not here. With Sherlock. With very limited contact with Sherlock._

He wants a gun in his hand. He wants Sherlock at his side. But that isn't going to happen the way John wants it until Sherlock has sorted out the problem of his sister in his head, and little progress seems to be happening. John feels he needs to do this alone, that he owes it to Sherlock to try; Sherlock had spent two years alone, saving everyone at the expense of losing himself. They can't move on — their family can't move on — until the final problem of Eurus is solved. And it is becoming more and more obvious that this one Sherlock can't solve, not on his own at least.

"That's mostly for me and him to worry about but yeah. I will be careful."  
  


\-----------?-----------¿-----------?-----------

 

By six o'clock, John decides he's procrastinated long enough. Sitting in his guest bedroom provides no rest since his restless thoughts prevent him from attempting a nap. He has no interest in wandering around the compound since that might bring him face to face with some of its other occupants. He has plenty enough trouble on his hands with just the one Holmes.

His heartbeat picks up when he makes his way back down to the right basement level.

The guards have changed shifts. The one now standing outside the door to Eurus' cell gives him an odd look. He's used to people being curious about him because of the company he keeps, but that doesn't mean it's stopped being irritating.

Eurus is sitting on the bench before her only table, reading a worn hardcover book when he enters. Without prompting, she shows him the cover: ' _Epistulae morales ad lucilium'_ by Seneca the Younger. John doesn't know what he had expected she would do for a bit of solitary fun.

"Plot any good?" he asks, taking his seat and leaning forward, slightly sweaty palms on his knees.

 _"'_ _The way is long if one follows precepts, but short... if one follows patterns,'"_ Eurus quotes.

"Sherlock would like that." _He_ _likes to think the world adheres to logic, that it has rules, that anything can be deduced with enough data._

"Sherlock would tell you it's not from this particular one of Seneca's alleged writings."

"He's not here."

Eurus slams the book shut. "I admit I had hoped he'd come this weekend, making you just a warm-up act."

John dislikes the insinuation that Sherlock visits are simply for her entertainment.

 _I'm not your clown, either._ "Does he tell you about the Work?" he asks.

"You sound as though the word is capitalised."

"In his books, it is."

"He mentions occasional facts about cases he thinks I might find interesting.  I don't. He wouldn't want to hear me solve them faster than him, which is probably why he never tells me all the facts. He hates it when Mycroft beats him to it."

"Of course he does; nobody likes a smartarse. Anyway––" John starts, and Eurus places the book, cover-up and still open to the spot where she'd stopped reading, on the table and comes to sit on the footstool she had placed near the glass.

 _Real, armoured glass this time,_ John thinks and is not consoled. _Sherlock must have been so nervous if he missed the fact that there was no barrier between them._

"Are you going to continue, or just sit there thinking about him and that silly lost child?" Eurus asked.

John gives her a cold smile, which reveals a sliver of teeth. He knows he is oversensitive to any attempt by her to bully him, to tell him what to do.

He needs to take back control, so he continues his story.

 

 

\-----------?-----------¿-----------?-----------  
  
 

**— 221B Baker Street —  
— two weeks earlier —**

 

Sherlock didn't say one thing or another about whether he'd take the case. John took Mr Hall's contact details, assured him that they'd be in touch. That was always his job if Sherlock deemed the case too insignificant to bother with.

The consulting detective did move onto his usual stage two that night: the research. To John, he seemed oddly keen to watch TV until he remembered what Mr Hall had said: ' _he's on TV even tonight'_ , referring to Alex Mandrake.

" _How does a boy from a small village in England's South Yorkshire turn into the world's greatest mentalist?"_ the interviewer on the screen asked, addressing his query to a thirty-something man in a form-fitting, moss green linen suit sitting across the table from him. This was an American evening show, the name of which John forgot as soon as he learned it. The only important thing was the identity of that evening's main guest: an up-and-comer mentalist, already well-known in his native country. He was, of course, Alex Mandrake, also known to them now as the man Mr Cushing was accusing to have something to do with the disappearance of his daughter.

John remembered seeing ads for Mandrake's shows on television, had even glimpsed the tail end of one. The man described himself as a magician, an illusionist, a mentalist, but he was also a Cambridge-educated psychologist who abandoned his academic career in favour of show business. He had quickly built a sturdy frame of fame for himself in the British press through public and spectacular displays of his abilities. He had recently landed himself a US agent; no wonder he was doing a bit of press on that side of the Atlantic.

 _"I don't know about the world's, let's just say Britain's. Derren might disagree, but he knows he'd now have to arm-wrestle me for the title,"_ Mandrake answered on screen, crossed fingers bracketing his knee which was draped in those expensive-looking linen trousers. It was an odd colour in John's opinion, one he'd never seen Sherlock wear even though he had a varied collection of similar garments.

The audience laughed.

" _My dad was a coal miner, you know; Kellingley Colliery, one of the last deep pit mines. Anyway, he had a family heirloom stash of these classic, classic comics about a guy called Mandrake The Magician. I loved them. He was my hero. That's where the name comes from — don't we all still want to be our childhood heroes?"_ The mentalist raised his brows and extended a hand towards the audience, eliciting delighted laughter and approving murmurs.

He takes this is a cue to continue. _"Anyway, especially after me Mum left, Dad had to leave me on my own quite a bit so that he could take care of the house, chores, that sort of thing, so he took me to the library where he let me be as late as I wanted. I read everything I could get my hands on that had to do with magic and mysticism and realised that, in a way, Mandrake wasn't just a comic, that it wasn't just make-believe, that there were actual people who were magicians by trade. So, when other kids wanted to be firemen and doctors and gardeners and nurses, I wanted to be Mandrake."_

The conversation turns to some of Mandrake's recent stunts, including one where he'd hypnotised the Chancellor of the Exchequer to reveal classified information. All of it had been naturally bleeped on screen, but John remembers how much of an uproar the whole thing had caused. Politicians now probably wanted to avoid the man like the plague. Even Mycroft had seemed uneasy when he had exchanged a few words on the topic weeks ago with Sherlock.

 _Intelligence services ought to be more than interested in such stuff,_ John reasons. Taking advantage of someone's special abilities sounded very Mycroft Holmes. John suspects that intelligence services may well have explored these avenues. _Didn't the CIA even dabble in telepathy or remote viewing research at one point, only to find it didn't really work?_ There had also been something called MKUltra which John remembers seeing Sherlock reading a book on, some sort of a CIA project involving hypnosis. John now wished he'd picked up that tome as well. _Maybe Sherlock still has it somewhere._

Sherlock crossed his legs where he was perched on his usual armchair, frowning as he seemed to be attempting to stare down the man being interviewed through the screen.

_On screen, Mandrake continued. "My skills do carry a heavy burden of responsibility. I'd never use them for evil if such a fairy-tale expression is allowed. If anything, I'd like to see them used to help others. If I do questionable things on the screen, the intention is always to educate, to keep people from underestimating the power of a suggestion and manipulation. Hypnosis is a proven treatment method for a number of issues, including trauma, detrimental habits such as smoking, and memory issues. It should be more widely available, through therapists trained to use it conscientiously."_

"How exactly is tormenting and humiliating a cabinet minister helping someone?" John asked Sherlock. He'd had a hard time negotiating in his head what the man did on screen and the fact that as a trained psychologist he was supposed to adhere to some sort of an ethical code. Surely educating people could be done without tricking them and turning them into the laughing stock of TV audiences.

"He's trying to establish a reputation. For that he'll need stunts as controversial as possible," Sherlock — ever the pragmatist — said.

 _"Let's move to something a bit more serious — this has been in the papers lately, so I'm sure our viewers are curious: you've amassed an eccentric circle of followers who live with you for long periods. Accusations of mind control and that group becoming a cult have surfaced. How do you respond?"_ The interviewer asked, looking slightly smug since he was probably expecting a salient, emotional reaction from his guest.

Such a reaction never materialised. Mandrake did look suitably saddened by the inquiry, his expression the embodiment of honesty and pity. To John, he seemed very calm and collected, looked like a man coached to derail discussions such as this. Or, perhaps not coached – he might simply be very good at self-restraint. _Hardly surprising for someone who bases their art on manipulating others._

Mandrake crossed his legs on the screen and sighed. " _These people are sharing my life of their own free will. I understand that those close to them who have not experienced the liberation of learning about these things can bring on can be highly suspicious, but I assure that, unless a cult is simply a group of people who love and respect one another and seek to develop their innate abilities, we are not one. What I offer, I offer up front. I don't ask for money. I have plenty."_

" _Anyone particular among that group?_ " the interviewer asked with a knowing look and a wink to the audience.

Mandrake looked relieved at the lighter turn in the conversation. _"I know how this is going to sound, I really do, but they're all special. I don't think of people in these pointless labels and rankings —best friend, spouse, lesser friends, acquaintance, nor do I label them straight, gay, girlfriend, boyfriend. They are encounters I have as I share my life with them, share experiences, see where the road takes us. I don't want to define my relationships through monogamy or polygamy, either. We get a regular flow of paparazzi through the edges of the premises and to their great disappointment, there's no orgy going on, nothing like that, even though that's what the tabloids might want you to think."_

_"But you don't deny a religious aspect to the group?"_

" _I don't feel comfortable with the term 'religion' when discussing my worldview. The word I prefer is 'philosophy'. We look at things carefully, like everyone should, we keep what works and discard what doesn't. We're seekers. We don't follow any set doctrine, which is also what would separate us from a cult. I don't have disciples. I also don't have an apprentice, and I'm not looking for one. People seek me out, and if I can help them, I will. Lots of young people will be disappointed by this, but I'm still young, too, you know — no need for a successor."_

To John, it sounded like a whole lot of new age nonsense. What cult leader would even be willing to describe their group with such a negative term? Then again, it was hard to look at the man on the screen and suspect him of wrongdoing. Were they being manipulated right now, through the images flickering on screen?

 _No,_ John thought. _Nobody has that kind of power._ "Don't you think––" he started, but Sherlock silenced him with a flick of his wrist. He was watching the show intently.

 _"Many mentalists, especially Derren Brown, who you speak highly of, deny the existence of magic, insisting that what they do is very human. Your stance seems to be similar,"_ the interviewer suggested.

_"Hundreds of years ago, we believed all sorts of weird things. Electricity made people scared; they thought it was demonic. Who knows what sorts of things we'll have learned, come the year 2100, about things that we now dismiss as rubbish or superstition. Yes, there is magic, it's all around us, we channel it when we affect others with our actions and our words. Science can't define love, or sorrow, measure it or isolate it and put it in an Erlenmeyer flask. What is the evolutionary function of such emotions? Why do we need love when we could reproduce without it? To me, that's magic — not the things I do on stage or in my programs. That's a skill and not a supernatural force; it's sleight of hand, persuasion and psychology."_

"There are proven advances to relationships and emotional bonds," John pointed out to Sherlock, "I think evolutionary psychology _has_ studied that quite a bit."

Once again, Sherlock silenced him with a raised forefinger and a shush, because Mandrake wasn't done yet.

" _Derren's a mate, and I love him to bits, but he's much more of a sceptic than me. He limits himself with that absolutist world view; he knows I feel this way, and we've agreed to disagree. At least we both know the power we yield is dangerous. Derren has proved that it's a myth that you couldn't make people do things they wouldn't otherwise do, when under hypnosis. Of course, you can't just hypnotise someone and tell them to commit murder, but you can alter their interpretations of the situation they are in and the people they are interacting with up to the point when they believe they are not doing anything morally questionable. Doesn't work on just anyone, you have to be very susceptible, but it is a powerful tool. That power needs to be wielded responsibly, which is why I understand those sceptics' organizations who insist that stage hypnosis should be banned. It's a dilemma, yes, but done responsibly, it can be a good and educational experience, and I take very good care in ensuring the subjects in our programs are debriefed properly. Usually, people find it quite liberating. They can do stuff beyond their comfort zones, go beyond what they thought were the limits of their capabilities."_

John snorted in disbelief. "Doesn't that mean people could do anything and then just use the excuse that they'd been hypnotised?" 

He had read about famous murderers who claimed they had been hypnotised by some murderous madman, turned into puppets. "If a magician gets someone to commit a crime, which one of them goes to jail? Shouldn't the one egging the culprit on get the same punishment?" 

Sherlock's fingers were steepled together, fingertips gently pressed to his lips. "Sirhan Sirhan used the Manchurian candidate defence when he was charged with the murder of Robert F. Kennedy, claiming he'd been brainwashed and hypnotised and couldn't even remember what he did. Psychologists still argue about whether it would have been possible."

" _You said 'usually'. What about those who don't find the experience pleasant?_ " the interviewer asked Mandrake.

Mandrake placed his palms on his knees. " _Easy. We pull them out, arrange counselling. I personally make sure everything is done respectfully. We haven't had any significant issues afterwards_."

"He could easily pay off people who didn't have fun pretending to be badgers on stage without knowing it," John pointed out.

There was something that really rubbed him to wrong way about all of this: how could anyone really consent to stage hypnosis, if they had no way to control the process, to say no if they were being coaxed to do something in public they probably wouldn't even do in the privacy of their own homes? The audiences laugh at them because they could have been anyone, but they were still being laughed _at_.

" _What about mentally ill subjects or people with past traumatic experiences? People who are looking for something in their own lives when signing up to your shows?_ " the interviewer asked.

John shifted in his seat, leaning forward because he didn't want to miss a single word of the answer to this question.

Mandrake didn't miss a beat before answering: _"That's where my abilities kick in. I can tell. We don't pick those people; we never pick those people. Someone with PTSD, personality disorders, brain injuries — never. We don't mess with that. You can't hypnotize just anyone. Many people resist it and resist it well. People who fear what being hypnotised could bring out will instinctively fight it, or not appear very keen to start with. We try to weed those out of the shows, as we do individuals who are hanging on a little too much hope on what I do. I'm a showman, right, that's my thing, I'm not a therapist when I'm on stage, but I do try to be responsible._ "

"It's still show business," John argued.

Up until then, Sherlock had looked if not approving then at least analytical. Now, dismay drew lines on his forehead as well. "Agreed. I hardly think cold reading and everything else he does to leech off people's emotions could exactly be described as ethical," he pointed out. "He does charge for his shows, and people might feel inclined to donate if he lets them believe he might change their lives, somehow. No lifestyle guru or person with allegedly supernatural abilities will suffer from a lack of idiots seeking to find enlightenment in their company."

" _That fits with the fact that you were lauded as a bit of a boy genius once_ ," the interviewer pointed out.

Mandrake flapped his wrist dismissively, and the gesture was striking to John because it was so similar to that flick Sherlock sometimes did. " _More hard work than talent, I tell you."_

_"Still, assistant professor of psychology at 25 is quite a feat."_

_"I like to say that academia is still my hobby on the side. I can't really understand magicians who aren't interested in learning how the human mind works, how our acts actually are perceived and turn from sensory information into experiences."_

"Notice how his fake northerner accent disappeared when he began talking about his academic career?" Sherlock pointed out to John and then pushed himself up from the seat to perch on the backrest of the chair, leaning forward with his palms on his knees to focus. "His whole background story could be a sham."

 _"Tell us about your latest TV special, then_ ," the interviewer prompted.

_"We're upgrading old mentalist acts to the modern age, with a bit of nostalgia when it comes to the aesthetics. I'm hoping it'll be a fun history lesson for the audience. There's also a tour in the works, but I can't get into much detail about that yet, except that we'll be doing shows both in the UK and the US."_

_"Well, that's a nice and mysterious high note to end with. Thank you, Alex. Alex's new series, 'Master of the Mind' is airing on Channel Four this Sunday."_

The interviewer shook hands with Mandrake, accompanied by heavy audience applause. The mentalist placed his hand on top of their entwined ones and leaned forward, probably to convey a maximal sense of friendship and attention. He walked off the stage with a well-practised wave while predominantly female voices from the audience hooted and continued applauding.

"You're taking the case, then?" John asked. Sherlock wanting to watch this very show should have been ample proof already, but it didn't hurt to ask.

"I'll look into it. Most likely, I could rule him out or confirm the father's suspicions easily by simply talking to Mandrake."

"Are you sure? I mean, I know you're really very good at poking holes in people's stories when they're lying, but this guy seems…." John hadn't been able to pinpoint precisely what it had been that had impressed him and audiences alike. Maybe the overall package. Confidence, unwavering composure. Still, having walked the Earth with Sherlock of all people, he knew that such a façade could hide deep-seated vulnerabilities. "…Genuine," he concluded. "Or maybe that's not the best word."

Sherlock could read things _on_ people, but interpreting their emotions and motives eluded him. John couldn't understand why, but something about this case — something about _Sherlock_ taking this particular case — raised the hairs on the back of his neck.

"I'll need his autobiography. Take my card," Sherlock said, unfolding himself from the chair and heading to the kitchen to fetch a laptop — _John's_ laptop.

"Not your errand boy. I just had a shower; my hair's still wet."

"Dry it, then, so you won't drip on the books. I'll keep an eye on Rosie while thinking."

Usually, when Sherlock _really_ thinks, he becomes dead to the world, but after Rosie had come along Sherlock had seemed to develop a new version of his self-induced thinking trance, one through which he managed to keep the little girl from bumping her head on sharp things and getting tangled up in things left on the floor, tearing himself out of his Mind Palace the minute Rosie emitted so much as a disgruntled peep.

\-----------?-----------¿-----------?-----------  
  


John hadn't argued Sherlock's order further that night because he likes being useful. More precisely, he likes being helpful to Sherlock and fulfilling that purpose seems to lessen the maelstrom of guilt and shame which lingers in his gut over many things, making him restless and even more attuned to Sherlock than ever. He wants to fix things between them, and that need still makes him walk on eggshells and humour the man's peculiarities up to the point of absurdity.

He wants to fix what had changed after Mary died. After Eurus happened.

After Culverton Smith happened.

These thoughts he doesn't verbalise to Eurus. He doesn't mention anything that has to do with the incident in the mortuary to her. He only thinks it, because so much of what he's telling her has to do with that day and some other days during which John has lost his grip on his anger and his morals. That's how he needs to call it: failing to adhere to what he believes in. Because he sure as hell doesn't believe in solving problems and dealing with difficult things by breaking them to bits. _Do as I say, not as I do…_

He breaks things, breaks people when he can't see a way out of the fury and hurt. When he feels the foundations of his world being shaken, control lost, he adds to that destruction.

For a split second, he envies Eurus because she probably doesn't feel things that way, and it's even more fucked up than anything he has done lately — envying someone so _beyond_ broken, just because he wants a moment out of himself and his guilt.

John wonders how well she understands remorse, and if she's ever felt it. _'Vivisection_ ' is what Sherlock had called her fun and games. _Pulling the wings off not insects but humans. Leaving them irrevocably changed._

He feigns a yawn, excuses himself. Eurus does not protest. Her gaze follows him out of the room, and he imagines he can feel her eyes through the walls, feel her focus on him even after walls on concrete separate them. It feels like the polar opposite of the consoling awareness of Sherlock's existence downstairs when John used to go to be at 221B.

 

\-----------?-----------¿-----------?-----------

 

The heavy concrete walls of his guest bedroom should make John feel safe. They would if he hadn't witnessed their uselessness once already, against the wrath of the woman housed within them. All through the night doors banging shut, erratic shouting and footsteps echoing down the corridor keep shaking the sleep off John's shoulders. He knows he's being watched on CCTV, but that does little to diminish his unease. There is no way to forget that he's locked up with the worst of the worst, stuck on an island for the damned in treacherous coastal waters.

At least there's a window, and a balcony with an empty flowerpot at the end of the corridor; this place doesn't exactly invite staff to decorate their quarters. Who would want to think about settling in here, about spending the rest of their careers or even lives in such a locale?

Memories of what happened here five months ago are not catching John unawares, simply because they already frame his every thought. His body is on high alert, the way he'd felt the last time he was here.

It feels like after Sherlock had died. Every time the Tube hurtled towards Baker Street station, every time he thumbed through the contact list on his phone over the entry for _'Sherlock'_ he couldn't bring himself to delete, every time something reminded him of his best friend. He should have been paralysed, exhausted, empty then, but instead, he'd felt painfully aware of everything, jumping at shadows, frightened, devastated. He lived as though it wasn't quite over yet, even if he knew it was.

John has never been a superstitious man; he couldn't have known Sherlock was still alive. Or could he? Hindsight is 20/20. What if he had been only a little bit cleverer, a little bit less weighed down and dim-eyed by sorrow. Perhaps he would have unwittingly picked up something in Mycroft's demeanour, in Molly's behaviour, in the fact that Sherlock's parents didn't attend the funeral at all.

What if a part of him did know?   Had Mary been an act of pre-emptive revenge he somehow thought he would get the chance to unleash on Sherlock because Sherlock had lied to him?

Abandoned him.

Betrayed him by not trusting him.

Left him. All alone.

Is he still angry but elects to snuff out the feeling, because he doesn't feel he has the right to be that way anymore?

In a way, by doing what he did, Sherlock gave him Mary. Gave him Rosie, by extension. That had then led to other things, other tragedies, and he still can't resist following the man to whatever the future has in store for them. It can't all be good. _The universe isn't that generous._

He would always follow Sherlock; he knows that now. He can rail against the thought, but it's an unshifting fact. These years have proven that if there is such a melodramatic thing as fate for him then that fate has black curls, a sharp tongue and a smile that's just for him that lights up half of London and John's battered heart.

It's frightening, the way someone becomes essential, because it makes the fear of losing them so great, but never too great to enable walking away to avoid that very pain.

He had embraced that pain, once. He had held onto it, thinking that if he let it go, let time dilute it, it would be like spitting on a grave. Like making a travesty of the relationship he'd had with Sherlock.

He misses Sherlock, right now, even now, terribly, because he still _has_ Sherlock.

They had never spoken of what had happened in the mortuary with Culverton, not really. What John had done had not made Sherlock stop executing his desperately dangerous plan against Culverton, and his conviction of wanting to save John instead of himself had never wavered. That was yet another thing Sherlock had over him, another selfless favour John could never repay because of who he is.

_'John, I am a ridiculous man... Redeemed only by the warmth and constancy of your friendship.'_

No.

_No._

It's the other way around.

How deeply ridiculous it is that Sherlock, the one who is supposedly emotionally so much less capable than him, is the one brave enough to say such things out loud.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Being hypnotised and brainwashed really has been used as a defence by several famous murderers, including Sirhan Sirhan. That, as well as homicide-related traumatic amnesia, are still topics heatedly debated among experts. Most often, people can't stop remembering traumatic events instead of forgetting them, but on the other hand, traumatic amnesia does sometimes happen. I'm not an expert on the topic, so the presentation of that and related topics in this story should be read within the context of artistic licence.
> 
> The books, interviews and shows of the British sceptic, mentalist and stage magician Derren Brown have had a major influence on this story and the character of Alex Mandrake. While I do personally find many aspects of stage hypnosis and mentalism ethically problematic, I enjoy Brown's work especially when it comes to debunking superstitious nonsense and the revealing the practices of charlatans such as mediums and faith healers who take advantage of vulnerable people to gain money and power. The story about the Mandrake show featuring a fake assassination of a celebrity is based on [a Derren Brown special called _The Assassin_](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owootTAuxic) featuring Stephen Fry. A detailed analysis of how it worked is beyond the scope of these author's notes, but [here is one take on the matter](https://www.hypnosiswithouttrance.com/2011/10/23/derren-browns-assassin/).
> 
> Befitting this story, [Brown likes quoting Arthur Conan Doyle and has lived on Baker Street](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/event/article-5477943/Derren-Brown-time-magic-trick-went-badly-wrong.html).
> 
> CIA really has dabbled in hypnosis and ESP. They once had significant projects dedicated to exploring these areas, the most famous ones being MKUltra and Stargate, the latter which was still in action as late as in the 1990s.


	4. Shaky Ground

 

 

 **Science is best defined as a careful, disciplined, logical search for knowledge about any and all aspects of the universe, obtained by examination of the best available evidence and always subject to correction and improvement upon discovery of better evidence. What's left is magic. And it doesn't work.**  
_— James Randi_

 

Nightmares.

Sometimes it seems that everything John dreams about these days is about the past. Even the small things. Conversations, images. His brain conjures up little whimsy these days, choosing instead to dwell on days long gone. Days to which he'd prefer to say  _good riddance._

Tonight, he dreams of Mycroft Holmes, the way he'd looked after Sherlock had stepped out of the shadows after scaring his eldest sibling half to death so that he'd tell the truth about Eurus. Sherlock would probably laugh at John's dream, tell him that Mycroft is the stuff of nightmares even during wakefulness.

It's only fitting that what jerks John out of the dream is a text message from none other than the older Holmes brother.

 _ **Progress report?**_  The message demands.

 _ **You tell me, since you must be watching us on CCTV,**_ John replies.

He doesn't mean to be snarky, but the cold sweat clinging to his body, his pounding heart and his chest which feels constricted, are sharpening the edges of his reactions and draining his patience.

 _ **Your visit will be terminated if the risk involved becomes too high**_ , Mycroft replies.

 _Typical. Veiled threats and asserting his superiority_ , John thinks.  _ **If this was ever about risk level you'd never have let Sherlock return here**_ , he reminds Mycroft.

_If Mycroft thinks Sherlock is stronger than me, he's an idiot. Sherlock is just very good at looking that way._

It takes a moment before a reply comes. Three dots dance, then stop. Dance, then stop.

_**I will not jeopardise his sanity again.** _

_**I think that ship's sailed**_ , John replies.

He often thinks Sherlock seems to be coping better than him these days. That he'd been doing so much better than John after Mary had died, too, even if he did, well, relapse. A part of John still wants to believe that it had been a calculated act. Afterwards, Sherlock got sober. Sherlock got better. It didn't matter if he'd been using before Mary died, did it?

John got better. But did  _they_ get better, together, or drift further apart into pretending things were like they used to?

No, things aren't the same. But it's not so simple as better or worse.

After Culverton Smith was arrested, it would have been an exaggeration to say that John left the hospital in good spirits. Everything was still fucked, Sherlock was still ill, he was still estranged from his daughter, but something had shifted. Something good. He knew it wasn't because he had got to take out his anger and his grief on someone who he no longer exactly felt deserving of it, but because there had been some goddamned honesty in what had happened during the past few days. John was so tired of well-wishers, or condolences, of being helped and comforted by people who knew nothing about him, nothing about Mary, nothing about Sherlock. Sherlock had seen past all that, had seen his anger, and in his stupid, stupid, stupid way tried to offer John a way to exorcise it from their life.

There is no excusing what he'd done, and he continues to reject Sherlock's forgiveness for it regardless of what he's said to the man. But what happened had been honest, even if it says terrible things about John.

He stands beside Sherlock, and compares himself to Sherlock, and sometimes it almost breaks him how he could never measure up to that standard beside him.

That night, leaving the hospital after Smith's arrest, John had wanted nothing else than to go to bed, to console himself with the bland thought everyone was safe and he could maybe start looking at fixing things in the morning. Fate had other ideas.

Well, not exactly fate but close: Mycroft Holmes.

John had barely taken three steps out of the main entrance when two uniformed officers promptly arrested him and whisked him away to a local police station. He was manhandled to a chair in an interrogation room, then left staring at the wall for hours. Once, he was brought water and that's when he demanded to know what was going on.

"There's been a complaint of an assault," the officer said.

"That was all cleared up. Talk to DI Lestrade at the Met," John had pleaded.

"That's all I know," the officer had said, and left.

John was left baffled and suspicious of what was going on. Had Smith made a complaint against him when he'd saved Sherlock? Or was the serial killer trying to cast off suspicion from himself by pressing charges against Sherlock, after all?

Or was this about what else had happened at the mortuary? Sherlock would not have been the one to press charges. No, it couldn't have been Sherlock, not when he was just on a mission to save John instead of getting him locked up.

 _So who…?_ he'd been wondering, when the door opened, and Mycroft walked in.

The older Holmes swallowed, his jaw muscles tensing. He stepped closer, inspected the visage of John with his haggard five o'clock shadow and crumpled clothes, then leaned away but only slightly.

"The one time––" he lets his head drop and a breathless, eerie laugh escapes his lips, "––the  _one_ time my brother tells me the truth and I take him for a liar––"

John frowned. "Mycroft, what––"

John was startled when a gloved hand slammed on the table in front of him.

"Sherlock informed me that he was going to embark on a journey of self-wreckage so you'd come to his rescue. I went along, thinking this was one of his standard hare-brained schemes and because saying no would have been useless."

John's lips twisted into a mockery of a grin. "He  _told_ you?"

A shaking forefinger was shoved into his face, within a millimetre of it. "I did not see in the beginning why you would be worth it, worth his trouble. I still don't see it, and I sure as hell would have hoped you'd have changed my opinion before I discover that my brother is, in fact, gleefully continuing his relapse because of you, and has ended up in hospital with kidney failure and the resulting injuries of a savage assault! I asked you to look after him,  _Doctor_ Watson. I asked you to do that  _one_ thing, yet you let the opposite happen."

John tried to rise from his chair, but his efforts were stalled by the handcuffs chained to the table he had somehow managed to forget about.

Mycroft in such a state of anger was a distracting sight. "He has nearly died for you and your wife numerous times through the past three years. He has cast aside whatever trauma was inflicted upon him during two years of living under constant threat to his life, in order to plan your wedding. He became a murderer––"

"Yes," John spat out. "He did all that. And if it weren't for him, I would never even have met Mary. If it weren't for him, there wouldn't be a little girl out there who––" his voice broke and he averted his gaze.

If Sherlock hadn't been... Sherlock. If Sherlock hadn't been in his life, he would have been spared of all this. Mary would have been spared of all this. Mycroft would have been spared of all this.

Rosie, _God_ , Rosie would have been spared of all this, because she wouldn't have even been––

And John himself would have been spared of all of it, because he would have been dead within four months of getting shot in the shoulder.

How does he keep forgetting that?

Deflated, plunged back into the darkness he had tried to drown in the bottom of a glass, John averted his gaze and hoped that he could suddenly delete other people like Sherlock could.  _I'd delete myself and this whole bloody mess_.

Mycroft took a step towards the door, clasped his hands behind his back like Sherlock often did. He looked older, suddenly. "You will be released at midnight. I advise you use this time to consider your options, which include having a long, hard look at  _your_ choices lately, and the role or lack thereof of Sherlock in them. Then, I invite you to consider the way you have treated the one person who during those two years of absence, never  _moved on_ like you endeavoured to do."

"I thought he was  _dead_!"

Mycroft performed a patrician eyeroll. "Well, as you must have discovered in Afghanistan, circumstances change."

John leaned back in his chair. It was pretty fucking late, he was cuffed to a table, and he was not in the mood to be lectured by Big Brother Holmes.

"Your other option is to walk away, as you very nearly already did. Walk away, so that I will be spared of watching my brother throw his life away for someone not even marginally worth the effort."

That being said, Mycroft walked out and slammed the cell door after himself.

John hadn't walked away, because he wanted to believe it was possible to resurrect something of what he and Sherlock had once had. When Eurus sprung her trap, he was there by Sherlock's side. For what it was worth, Sherlock had proved yet again that he was willing to do anything to save John. Anything to keep him safe, even going against a sister perfectly capable of destroying them both.

It was yet another burden of guilt laid on John's shoulders. Mycroft was right: he has been so wrapped up in himself that he hadn't seen what Sherlock had gone through, wilfully closed his eyes to the suffering of others around him.

When does sorrow become old and stale, more habitual than acute, so self-centred that it turns on its owner?

How does a man tell his daughter that her mother died to end a circle a violence she herself started?

How does a man repay a friend who has sacrificed himself for a love he never had a guarantee of receiving, the nature of which remains painfully undefined?

Can a man redeem a sister who destroyed his life?

Can a man forget?

The stone walls of Sherrinford give him no answers. Eventually, he sleeps.

 

\-----------?-----------¿-----------?-----------

 

What John had hated the most about the army is also the part he loathes above others about waking up in Sherrinford: the sense of rudderlessness, of being a long way from home, distant from familiar things. The sense of that alienation fills his pores like a malaise.

Although he tries to keep it at bay, the question lingers: is this a wild goose chase? Is there something more useful he ought to be doing, instead, about him and Sherlock? Has he come here because he wants to escape more important conversations he ought to be having, conversations he doesn't even know how to initiate? Is he here, now, distracting himself with some Don Quixotic attempt at protectiveness because he doesn't know how to face Sherlock? How is he going to pass on the lessons from a tale he has already begun to tell, if he hasn't quite internalised those lessons himself?

It frightens him how far Sherlock is willing to go to hide his pain, just because he thinks it unimportant in comparison to the pain of others. How could John change that, except by trying to protect him from further hurt?

 

\-----------?-----------¿-----------?-----------

 

As he approaches the antechamber to Eurus' cell, John feels emboldened by the fact that things have gone better with her than he could have anticipated. Eurus is paying attention, and while John doubts he has influenced her thinking in any way — after all, his story has not yet reached the most important stages of the case —his theory about her curiosity being his shield against her manipulative influence just might be holding true.

This morning, they share coffee, each sitting on their respective sides of the bulletproof glass. It is a strangely domestic event, but John tries hard not to let it lull him into a false sense of security. Eurus could rescind her amicability at any time, and if that happened, no amount of firepower or plexiglass might be able to prevent the damage. He had made a promise to himself not to allow his opinion to be changed about the level of danger she poses, no matter how great an actress she could be in trying to convince him of her penance and need for a human connection. John doubts both.

If Eurus wants to get closer to Sherlock, hurting John would be highly counterproductive.

He isn't going to waste time trying to coax her to work for Mycroft again, that's for sure. John doesn't think he owes anything to a man who had — inadvertently or not — nearly destroyed Sherlock's life on several occasions, perhaps the worst example being selling his secrets to Moriarty. No, it was time for someone to give Mycroft Holmes some of his own medicine and use  _him,_ for once, to get what they are after.

He is here on a fact-finding mission, and to deliver a warning. He needed Mycroft for that. Is it manipulative, if John's intentions are noble?

Are they noble?

He swallows the last of his coffee, and soldiers on with his story.

 

\-----------?-----------¿-----------?-----------  


After days of speculative monologues, feverish googling and practically memorising all three of Mandrake's books, Sherlock announced it was time.

"Time for what?" John asked, carrying an armful of laundry he'd found in a pile on the floor of Sherlock's bedroom. If John sorting such a chore out happened to result in some posh, dry-cleaning-only thing ending up in the spin cycle then it would have to serve as an educational experience for Sherlock to pull his weight with running the household.

"To make contact, John,  _obvious!"_

Sherlock often used John as a stooge who contacted people on his behalf. This time, however, Sherlock not only oversaw the introductory proceedings but placed himself right in the middle.

"He's looking for people to participate in his new show. I'm naturally not going to do anything of the sort, but that means he's back in England, preparing for the production. He hasn't solidified his popularity, so dangling the carrot of a  _local_ celebrity endorsement or even participation might well do the trick of getting him to talk to us."

After coming back from the dead and catching Culverton, Sherlock was more notorious than ever. John didn't think this was necessarily a good thing. It had been his growing fame, after all, which had put them on Moriarty's radar.

"Endorsement? In exchange for what?" Sherlock wouldn't just make promises. No, it would be some sort of a quid pro quo thing.

"Assistance in a personal matter," Sherlock announced.

"Lucy Cushing? How's that personal? Wouldn't he be able to easily check if you actually knew her? He'd get wind of it being a case of yours rather quick, I'd say."

"Not Lucy. I'm going to pique his curiosity with a delicate issue, allowing you to find out what you can about his involvement with Lucy."

"How? What issue?"

"He writes extensively about memory techniques and memory recovery. He's even done some legitimate research into it."

John put two and two together, and he didn't like the result of that equation one bit. He dropped his laundry pile on the sofa. "Sherlock, no."

Sherlock pivoted on his heel and turned to face him, looking determinedly petulant, a page straight out of the drama queen playbook. "What do you mean, 'no'?"

"I mean no, I would strongly advice against what you must be thinking."

Sherlock crossed his arms. "And what would that be?" He sat down on the armrest of John's usual chair.

"Let me guess. You don't really care about the case. You want to get close to this guy, so he'd help you remember. Sherlock, it's been years. The carbon monoxide poisoning you suffered when Musgrave Hall burned down can do a lot of things to memories and the ability to form them. We looked into it a lot, remember? There might not be any memories there for you to recover! You've been through a lot of traumatic stuff, both back then and in the past few years. To let some showman rummage through your head––"

"He's a trained psychologist."

"Who once hypnotised a woman to think the bloody apocalypse was happened just so he could make a TV show out of it!" John pinched the bridge of his nose. "You're obsessed with Eurus! It's not healthy. Mycroft says she's had all manner of necessary medical care, even therapy available, but it never works. She twists everything around and turns the therapists into nervous wrecks, or worse. I've looked into things, too, and all the evidence says that psychopaths, people with antisocial personality disorders don't benefit from therapy — they only learn more manipulative skills!"

"She just needs someone to––"

John regarded him tiredly. "If Mycroft couldn't make her life any better, what could you possibly…"

Sherlock took in his sceptical expression, clammed up and stormed into his bedroom, slamming the door closed.

John sighed and went to pick Rosie up from Mrs Hudson's.

 

\-----------?-----------¿-----------?-----------

 

Eurus scoffs. "You don't think he can take care of himself."

"He's not got the best track record, no," John counters.

The deja vu of the argument he has just recounted is disheartening. Sherlock had a plan, and John having angered him meant that he might well consider leaving John out of it, despite everything they'd talked about. Despite everything they'd promised each other about keeping no more secrets, about being a team.

About being a family.

Sherlock had defined that family when Mycroft had demanded that John leave the room so that they could discuss Eurus. If Sherlock could make such a decision, couldn't he also decide that the proverbial mad woman in the attic couldn't be a part of that family. What would be enough — what would Eurus have to do so that he'd give up?

Eurus is leaning forward in her chair. John can tell she's engaging with the story.

"Why does it bother you that he doesn't tell you about all his plans? Do you somehow think he needs your input?" She asks, looking genuinely puzzled. "What does he need you for?"

Her question implies that she thinks John would not be able to contribute anything to someone of such superior intellect. He has to stifle the urge to tell her that Sherlock has often relied on him to be a moral compass, to be a conductor of light. Would that be revealing too much to Eurus? He doesn't know.

John decides that trying to justify his usefulness would only sound pathetic, so he just shrugs. "Ask Sherlock."

Pressing on, he then continues the story.

 

\-----------?-----------¿-----------?-----------

  
  
A day later, he and Rosie were back at 221b, and Sherlock announced that Mrs Hudson had volunteered to watch her while the two men headed out for a business lunch.

"A working lunch? You're breaking your rule of not eating during cases?" John teased, aware that Sherlock had already bent some of these strange rules because John didn't want Rosie to be influenced by them. He had been very nervous to approach the subject, but Sherlock had listened to what he had to say without a single word of protest, then nodded. John wanted to teach his daughter that families ate at regular mealtimes.

"Needs must," Sherlock conceded.

"At least tell me you're not going to start taking him down on Twitter the way you did with Culverton Smith."

This elicited a snort from Sherlock, but he wouldn't look at John. They could talk about Culverton Smith, as long as they stuck to discussing the cold facts of the case. As long as they didn't talk about the drugs or the events at the mortuary.

"We're having lunch with Mandrake," Sherlock said and went for his coat.

He had cc'd John in when he'd emailed the mentalist, which had made John relieved that he hadn't been banished from the case, after all. It had been meticulously worded – vague enough to rouse interest. Sherlock had expressed interest in finding out whether the man would be able to assist him in a personal matter, then promised to consider a public endorsement afterwards. He mentioned being aware that a new TV show was being planned, and that he was very hesitant to consider letting his matter be a part of that. He'd left enough of a door open regarding the subject matter that if Mandrake thought his reputation might be an asset to his plans of fame and fortune, he might just be very motivated to meet up with Sherlock to discuss things further.

In the wake of the Culverton Smith case, Sherlock was now more famous than ever before. Some articles had even delved into his not-so-distant past, chronicling his fall from grace and the subsequent restoration of his reputation after proof had surfaced that the web of lies spun by Moriarty had been exactly that —an elaborate hoax. The media certainly loved the idea of an enigmatic sleuth, and they never failed to mention one thing: John's return to Baker Street, toddler in tow.

' _Old love rekindled_?' one headline had inquired. John had wanted to laugh at it. These things bothered him less as the years went by.

  
\-----------?-----------¿-----------?-----------

 

"Your therapist was convinced that you and Sherlock––" Eurus interrupts him.

"I'm not going to discuss that with you."

She fluttered her lashes but, unlike when Sherlock did it, it looked sarcastic and not completely taken by surprise. "You discussed it with Irene Adler."

"She likes playing around with other people's love lives."

"So the topic does encroaches on your love life, then?"

John gives her a side-eye. "What do you know about love, hm?"

The headline in that newspaper had been silly, because there was nothing to rekindle. He had never stopped loving Sherlock in the way he had always loved Sherlock which he refused to define. John hadn't even stopped loving him when he'd held his gun in his hand, a glass of whiskey in the other for months after his supposed suicide, trying his damnedest to hate the man who was the reason he saw no future for himself. Of course he loves Sherlock, and Sherlock loves him back, they just don't have the need to make it so bloody black-and-white and about who-shagged-who as the idiots who write the tabloid pieces.

When Sherlock had returned from the dead, John loved him still. Even Mary had seen that, and if Mary didn't consider it necessary to challenge John's devotion to her based on his dedication to Sherlock––

However John's love should be categorised, or defined, was a matter for another day. They have gone through too much lately to attempt that right now.  _Let the dust settle first._

  
\-----------?-----------¿-----------?-----------

  
Mandrake had replied to Sherlock's email after only a few hours, inviting them to lunch at a newly opened, high-profile Michelin restaurant. To John, this felt like a fresh change after their preceding case which hadn't offered anything fancier than rummaging around fish-reeking shipping containers in the harbour.

  
\-----------?-----------¿-----------?-----------

  
John's culinary commentary is interrupted by a fist banging on the glass between him and Eurus. It makes him flinch so hard that he nearly falls off his chair. Eurus' lip quirks up at the sight.

"So, your little story of my brother's latest case…The whole thing was really an excuse for him to try to find his memories. Memories of  _me._ " She doesn't attempt to moderate the smugness in her tone. "And you thought it was a terrible idea. Tell me more."

"Then sit the fuck down and stop interrupting me," John snaps and he breathes out through his nose, trying to calm his racing heart.

  
\-----------?-----------¿-----------?-----------

Sherlock had told him he wanted to be fashionably but not impolitely late. John felt like a third wheel when they were escorted to a two-person table, a flustered waiter quickly hurrying off with a promise to bring in a third plate and cutlery since only two places had been set.

 _Of course Sherlock hadn't even mentioned bringing me along_ , John thought bitterly.

Mandrake glanced at his Breitling just before they walked into his line of sight, pushing a half-drunk glass of white wine towards the middle of the table. He had expressive brown eyes, a natural-looking tan and the wiry frame of a habitual runner. His sky-blue linen suit was as snug a fit as Sherlock's black Spencer Hart ensemble. Most men would probably look like funeral directors in such an outfit, but Sherlock could pull off a pile of rags and still look… admittedly gorgeous. Both he and Mandrake completed their outfits with white dress shirts.

 _They look like a pair of morning TV fashion commentators,_ John thought.

Hands were shaken, chairs commandeered. Sherlock declined wine, opting for an espresso instead. John accepted an offer for the same sauvignon blanc Mandrake was pushing around.

The waiter provided them with menus. Sherlock barely glanced at his copy, opting quickly for a pumpkin and mascarpone soup before the waiter had a chance to disappear. John hastily picked a steak. He hadn't had any breakfast because Rosie had been acting up; trying to prevent the kitchen from turning into a mess as she played with her food had taken all his attention.

"Is it any wonder she's being contrary?  _I_ wouldn't put that in my mouth," Sherlock had remarked after glancing into the small bowl of fruit puree John has been trying to keep out of her reach and simultaneously feed her.

He noticed he had a fruit puree stain on his trousers and tugged his chair closer to the table so that the edge of the table cloth with conceal it.

"I'm not quite sure what your precise proposition is," Mandrake told Sherlock, clasping his fist within the fingers of his other hand, arms on the table. He had immediately offered Sherlock the right to call him by his first name."I have to admit I was intrigued."

John looked for innuendo in his words and found none. It was a relief. Frankly, he was very fed up with potential criminals trying to unnerve Sherlock in such a manner. Moriarty had been the worst and, to add insult to injury, Sherlock had seemed somewhat fascinated by the man's blatant flirting. Sherlock was usually oblivious to even the most obvious amorous attempts, but Moriarty's veiled seduction attempt at Barts under the guise of Jim from IT he had not had any trouble recognizing for what they were, even if he acted disinterested.

Under Mandrake's scrutiny, Sherlock shifted in his chair, hands hidden from view on his lap. John, sitting on his right side, could see that he was running his thumbnail across his fingertips, an obvious tell. Why was Sherlock nervous?

Even his baritone seemed a tad higher than normal. "Your academic writings have focused on memory and on stage, you have demonstrated an impressive array of related techniques. I've always had an interest in advanced memory techniques such as Matteo Ricci's Memory Palace doctrine. I also have a personal, acute interest in the recovery of recollections that appear lost."

Mandrake —  _Alex,_ as he had insisted —placed his elbows on the table and raised his hands up, but instead of steepling his fingers like Sherlock did, his hands remained separate, the gesture inviting and animated. "But why contact  _me_? There are plenty of therapists specialising in such things. Regrettably, I have less and less time for clinical psychology, and I've always been more of a researcher than a clinician."

"You're willing to bend the rules to achieve results," Sherlock replied bluntly, carefully picking up a linen napkin and arranging it onto his lap. "In a recent interview, you did explicitly state you sometimes help people who come to you."

John mirrored what he had done with the napkin, keeping a careful eye on his companion.

Sherlock continued. "I don't have time to waste on some standard therapeutic approach. There is also the fact of your  _other_ hypnosis-related skills, the ones that are more of a focus of your shows. You can alter the motivations of others, allow them to achieve things they most like wouldn't otherwise. It would serve me well in my work to explore the lengths to which someone with such abilities could go."

 _Like murder,_ John added in his head, his thought shifting to the desperation in Mr Cushing's eyes.

Alex's eyes were fixed on Sherlock."I like to think the things people do on my shows are things they might be capable of if they'd only had a different life. Not everyone can be hypnotised, and out of those who are susceptible to it, very few can achieve a deep enough trance state for the kinds of things I show in my TV specials. Very few people are  _special_ enough for my shows."

"You can't change a person's baseline personality type, then, or turn someone evil or good and vice versa," John suggested.

It was probably a blatant oversimplification, but there was something about the scenario unfolding here that was raising his hackles. It was quite logical that Sherlock's interest could be piqued by someone who promised a potential shortcut to recovering memories he may have lost forever, but what were those 'other skills' Sherlock was talking about?

"I'm afraid my current schedule does not allow engaging in work for private individuals, but this might be something that could provide an educational angle for what we're scripting next. Would you be willing to consider taking part in a show?"

Sherlock looked positively coy, now, in a way John instantly recognised as playacting. "Oh, I'm really not sure about that."

"Why don't you tell me more, then, before we decide anything."

It wasn't like Sherlock to use personal details in casework, but that was still exactly what he did. He told Alex there are memories he had lost and wished to recover—memories that had been replaced by something else, a placeholder image.

 _Redbeard,_ John knew.

Sherlock didn't volunteer any specific details.

"Have you got any general idea what might be behind those false memories?" Alex asked.

"I do know what happened in my childhood, I simply find the notion disconcerting that I can't look back to such experiences now and put them in the context of knowing the people involved as adults, now. All I have is their stories, told by others."

Their food arrived but Alex didn't touch his portion. Instead, he worried his lip for a moment, then cast a weary look at Sherlock. "Look, I have to be frank. False memories and traumatic amnesia are rare, and strongly associated with two known socio-psychological phenomena: false sexual and ritual abuse claims, and the so-called alien abduction phenomenon. The former requires a very sensitive, gradual approach and specialist therapy, neither which I can provide. The latter I'm afraid fall outside the realm of both my interests and what I'm willing to engage with."

Sherlock's expression soured. "I was neither abused nor abducted by Martians."

 _Perhaps not sexually abused, but what other word could be used when it comes to the effect Eurus had on his childhood? Terror? Torture?_ John wondered.

  
\-----------?-----------¿-----------?-----------

 

He pauses his story to gauge the reaction of the woman whose childhood actions he had just described in such terms. Eurus is picking a nail and looks… not very insulted.

John sniffs and continues.

 

\-----------?-----------¿-----------?-----------

"I bet you get contacted by a lot of nutjobs. People wanting to speak to dead relatives, that sort of thing?" John suggested to lighten the tension.

Alex nodded. "As many times as I have explained what hot and cold reading are, some viewers insist I am a genuine medium. It's sad."

"I'm not looking for a medium — I need to find someone who knows how the human memory works and how it can be manipulated; reverse-engineered, if you will," Sherlock interjected. "But you're dismissing me even though it should be obvious I am not emotionally unstable or deluded. I guess even a stage magician has to consider their reputation?" he offered venomously.

Alex laughed, and John was surprised he didn't sound put off. "Touché. "His expression then sobered. "You've looked me up thoroughly, but I do my research as well. Some months ago, your state of mind and mental health  _were_ brought to question."

John cursed inwardly. _Culverton Smith._

"By a serial killer who tried to make me his latest victim," Sherlock pointed out disinterestedly. "I assure you that it was all part of my plan. The bits that leaked to the public were an unavoidable side effect."

"Yeah, just a side effect," John parroted, trying to keep at bay images of Sherlock shaking in cold sweat in withdrawal. They'd had to put him on methadone for two weeks while his kidneys recovered, he was that deep down the barrel of his relapsed addiction that the withdrawal threatened his recovery.

"I assure you that since I am already aware of the actual events behind these memories, this is about neither of the absurd scenarios you mentioned," Sherlock assured Alex. "While the events are disturbing and––" a brief pause, as though he'd been looking for the right word; "––traumatic," he finally conceded, "they are nothing that would land you in a tabloid scandal."

"Then why go to all the trouble if you already know what has happened?"

To John, it seemed rather obvious. Hadn't Sherlock already explained it rather well — that he wanted the truth instead of just someone else's filtered versions of it. "If you lost an important memory of your own, would you settle for someone else's recollection of it?"

Alex considered this for a moment; he seemed lost in thought before answering, "No, I guess not."

John wondered if there was a particular memory of which the man might have been thinking.

A thought occurred: it was obvious that they couldn't divulge details about Eurus, so how would Sherlock keep her existence a secret from Alex if those memories did resurface? Would he simply claim her to be someone else? Sherlock wouldn't really let the guy hypnotise him or anything like that, would he?  _There's no guarantee what Alex might learn, and he's a murder suspect, for Christ's sake!_

The conversation shifted to the sort of polite chitchat people who have only just met tend to engage in. Mandrake had, unsurprisingly, acquainted himself with John's blog. John asked about his work, and he seemed happy to explain some basic principles of classic stage magic. At one point, Sherlock and Alex got caught up in an animated conversation about memory techniques, and the mentalist seemed keen to hear about Sherlock's Mind Palace.

"Sounds like you've made good use of that method of loci. Have you read Cicero's  _De Oratore_ 's passages on the subject?"

"Of course. Though I find he skimped on the technical details," Sherlock commented with a conspiratorial smirk.

"I wish I was a more spatially oriented person. No wonder you're adept at analysing crime scenes. Do you think you're combining a memory journey technique with a classic memory palace, or do you see it purely as either?"

"Good question. Have you got a favourite, then?"

"I use the so-called major system, converting number sequences into nouns, nouns into images and then linking images into sequences. It was a bit of a hassle to learn, but it's lauded as possibly the most effective method."

Sherlock nodded and ate his first spoonful or soup. John had already demolished three quarters of his steak.

Over coffee and petit fours, Alex finally revisited the topic of Sherlock's e-mail. "I get it; I wouldn't sign up for anything this vaguely defined, either, when it comes to a TV show, and I'm not going to wrench a promise out of you before hearing more. Look, I've got an unscheduled weekend coming up before the tour. You're very welcome to stay at my house in Chilgrove. I'm sure I could squeeze in a bit of time to discuss all of this further."

 

\-----------?-----------¿-----------?-----------

 

  
"Why are you telling me all this?" Eurus asks, her tone rising and then falling in an unsettling manner not befitting a question.

The interruption makes John irritated. _She should be grateful that she's got a visitor who's attempting either to_ _educate or entertain her_. On the other hand, she has had years to whip up a bottomless rage over being stuck in this place, so anything good that might happen will fall short of paying for what she must consider very unfair punishment for her simply being who she is. Who she was born to be.

Was John born to be the way he is, now? Given his father's anger and substance abuse issues, is he going against a set of unfortunate genes by trying to learn to be better?

Sherlock had managed it—becoming a better man and getting better at dealing with people—but he's a genius and not at all a sociopath like Eurus.

Maybe this is what John fears the most: that Sherlock may, indeed, be a much better person than he can ever hope to be.

"I'm telling you all this, because if I just showed up and concisely told you the reason why I'm here, well, that hardly warrants a helicopter ride. It would have been pointless, coming all the way here, just for a few words."

"Why not just say the words?" She looks a bit confused. "Or is this some game you are playing? Maybe you're not as clear on why you're here as you like to pretend."

"Does everything have to be a game with you?"

"No. Sherlock does the same trip, just for a few hours, and he clearly makes no advance plans. How long are you staying?"

"I'm here until tomorrow afternoon."

"You're curious about me," Eurus offers, the spectre of a satisfied smile haunting her lips. "You don't want to be, but you are."

John shakes his head. He wants to walk out, wants to abandon this mission. Whatever curiosity he may have had about her should have disappeared right around the time he came here for the first time and saw what she could do. Would do.  _Wanted_ to do.

Yet a basic human need to understand why Sherlock cares so much, even after everything she had done to him, has not left John yet.

"Sherlock comes here to play the violin for a few hours, which he could do at home. Then he leaves," Eurus tells him. She's frowning as the cogs in her head turn, trying to discern why Sherlock would do such a thing.

John knows she doesn't understand kindness. She doesn't understand forgiveness, because for her these constructs hold no value. She would never gift someone with those things, because she doesn't see the point.

John knows all this, but he's still surprised this is how Eurus sees Sherlock's visits —as a puzzle to be solved instead of the simple gesture of building bridges they are. He decides against pointing this out. He has no right to define the purpose of things Sherlock does.

"He's under the impression that the violin is how  _you_ want to communicate, since you pretty much refused to talk to anyone. By the way, it really bothers him when you demand he make up new stuff to play," John says.

"Why does he want to play notes governed by others? Why does he need that false order when chaos is the prevailing state of the world? Is he as disappointingly simple as most people, people look to the details of other mundane lives to find meaning and order because they fear reality?"

"I didn't come here to debate philosophy or to pretend I know how other people think."

"You being here certainly signals you presume to know better than me how Sherlock thinks. He likes patterns, and habits, and nervous ticks, because they're safe. They work the way they want to. I'm surprised he hasn't gotten himself a job shelving things at a supermarket, something dull and repetitive, something that would quiet his mind."

John's expression is incredulous. "That doesn't sound like him at all. He doesn't like safe things, can't deal with boredom. He gets into trouble, because trouble is exciting enough to hold his attention. He does have his little… rituals," John finally concedes, "but I think he'd go mad if someone tried to force him into adopting any kinds of routines."

_Except when it's me. Except when it's about Rosie._

Sherlock: high-functioning, God yes. Sociopath, no, even if he hides behind such a term.  _Not anymore, though._ It used to be a convenient term to conceal another word people would associate with social difficulties—one that invites pity, not fear. John remembers what he'd been taught at medical school about people on the Autism spectrum: that they need routine, they need things to be predictable, because the world as designed for more neurotypical individuals constantly frightens and surprises them. Sherlock always defies stereotypes, even in this. He wonders if Eurus is aware Sherlock has been diagnosed to be on the Spectrum. Sherlock knows John knows, courtesy of Mycroft, but they've never said the word out loud. Once, John had made a joke about it, one that in hindsight must have been insulting, but he doubts Sherlock had overheard what he'd said to Greg in Dartmoor. In hindsight, John doubts the presence of anyone else than him offers Sherlock much reassurance. He knows that he does, because Sherlock has told him so, in that emotionally very circumspect way of his.

Eurus stands up and wanders closer to the glass, and she looks to be drinking in eagerly John's words about her brother.

"You wanted to know about Sherlock, and I've been trying to understand why," John says bluntly. "I've been trying to understand what you'd want from him after all this time. Maybe you want to spend time with him because he lives in the real world, unlike you. I don't believe that just intelligence has much to do with how differently your lives have gone —it's not as though Mycroft is any different. He likes organizing the entire world and thinking of it as his personal little sandbox, but he's not…"  _Evil_.

"He's a small, petty man. He doesn't interest me."

"Who exactly have you set up as your standard of an interesting person, then?" John scoffs. "James Moriarty?" he plucks up the courage to suggest, "He's  _dead_."

"I know. He was very brave about it," Eurus says in a tone with which parents compliment their children, but there's a hint of mockery mixed in. "He was supposed to win the game with Sherlock, make him take his own life. But he lost and took his own. Disappointing but not entirely surprising. For the record, Sherlock is smarter than him, and less irrational."

John feels like the wind has been knocked out of him. He  _knows_ Moriarty had been under her influence, probably for years, but it's still hard to shift all the fear and anger towards the Irishman onto someone Sherlock is trying to help, who Sherlock cares about.

It had been easier with just Moriarty around being an evil arsehole, thinking that Sherlock was just mildly interested in his innuendo, instead of there being this inexplicable connection of blood to someone who might just be even  _worse_.

What had Moriarty been like as a child? Was he like Eurus, or had he developed a taste for foul things later in life and with a much more practically oriented mind set than her?

John had vowed not to insult or antagonize her, but had it been a pipe dream that their conversations wouldn't eventually bring out some of her unsightlier qualities?

"Why did you do all of it? If it's Mycroft you loathe for keeping you here, why not go after him? Why play all these games with Sherlock — and me?" John demands.

"Mycroft is boring. Sherlock is _more_ , someone who is trying to hitch a ride on the back of normality but who keeps falling off. He wants to be like everybody else but can't, so he makes a huge number out of being the opposite."

 _'High-functioning sociopath_ ,  _do your research_.'

"What did you think was going to be the result? How did you think it was all going to end?"

He hadn't dared to wonder about this before but maybe he won't have to speculate, now that he can ask Eurus directly. Sherlock seems to live by the adage that it's always better to know, even things that are painful.  _Knowing means being able to prepare for battle._

"An experiment is supposed to be open-ended. There was much I didn't know about him, a lot that I couldn't anticipate. There were a number of possible endings. I was trying to calculate which of them would happen."

John wants to shake her, punish her, make her realise that people have  _died_ because she has wanted to calculate the end result of combined variables —  _God, that sounds so terrifyingly like something Sherlock would say_ — but what stalls John is a sudden realisation that yes, he does think Eurus is beyond help.

But can he be sure? Maybe she's just pressing his buttons, putting on a show. How can he ever know when he's talking to the real person underneath? Does one exist?

"Does it ever occur to you why you're here?" John asks, trying to keep his tone neutral but it comes out as cold as the heavy stone walls surrounding them.

"A canary in a cage isn't there because it wants to be. Nor can it understand the motives of those who would imprison it."

"A canary in a cage is there because it gives joy to people. You've sure got some work to do on that front." His argument sounds fumbling, but then again, he's used to always losing to a Holmes.

"Is that what you think my purpose should be? To bring joy? Is that why Sherlock visits, do you think? Does he think I will gain more from this than he does? Does he return here just to chase the ghost of a memory he thinks he can claim some ownership of?" Eurus looks as though she genuinely does not know. A surprising hint of sadness, something John hasn't seen before, lingers briefly in her eyes.

"He wants to remember, but can't," John says.

She shakes her head. "I have an eidetic memory, and that's what he's been told he has, too. A mind that cannot remember is defective. There's a thing Mycroft says––' _If my memory serves me right'_ ––a turn of phrase, but even he has enough sense to recognise that human memory is not very reliable. Episodic memory does not  _serve_ us. At best, it's a nuisance and at worst, an enemy. Sherlock has buried it all, but if he wants to know, he should  _ask me!_ I will gladly tell him what Mycroft won't."

"What Sherlock wants is the truth, and he doesn't trust you to give it to him. If he can't have that truth, then he wants the story the way he experienced it, and he's afraid he'll never regain that. I think he hasn't asked you, because he very much doubts that you'd be able to provide a very objective version."

"All human experiences are subjective. There is no absolute, untarnished truth about what happened to either of us."

She shrugs and turns away.

John feels as if he's been dismissed.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The method of loci, of which Sherlock's Mind Palace is a version, [really has been around since ancient Greece and Rome](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Method_of_loci). Matteo Ricci was a 16th century Jesuit priest [famed for his memory palace technique](https://forum.artofmemory.com/t/excerpts-from-the-memory-palace-of-matteo-ricci-the-book-of-memory-rhetorica-ad-herennium-and-de-oratore/27838?_ga=2.179538982.362131828.1560960912-1354706336.1560960912).
> 
> The notion of Mandrake's TV special about tricking someone to believe the world has ended is based on Derren Brown's [The Apocalypse](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_CUrMJOxqs).


	5. Control

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am very grateful to ASilverGirl for auditing this chapter, and to 7PercentSolution for her beta work.

 

> **You don’t remember what happened. What you remember becomes what happened.** _  
> — John Green_

 

When John returns to the subterranean level after lunch, Eurus looks expectant as she is sitting on the floor, hands folded into her lap. John wonders why she does not appear to be cold — maybe she can turn it off, somehow, just like Sherlock seems capable of ignoring his bodily functions and needs. But her abilities seem to go beyond just ignoring things. With a shudder, John remembers Mycroft recounting when Eurus had been found cutting herself as a child

 _'Which one's pain?_ ' she had asked.

No, it's not the same at all, John decides. _She's not like Sherlock, who succumbs after every case to hunger, thirst and exhaustion._ Countless times he has allowed John to look after him when they return home, tuck his limbs under blankets, nag successfully about mugs of tea and quickly rustled-up sandwiches. It's their ritual when a case ends in the early hours of the morning, one they attend in silence and a comfortable understanding that allows the limits of friendship to shift, bend and blur.

Sometimes John had woken up on the mostly unused side of Sherlock's bed, fully clothed. At those times, it had taken him such effort to see to Sherlock's injuries, to look after him, that he had no energy to spare for himself. It has been at those moments when his life has felt the simplest, the most… whole.

Unlike his sister, Sherlock most certainly feels pain. Sometimes John suspects he feels it — all of it — even more acutely than others do. When in danger or injured and fighting for their lives, humans sometimes don't even realise they're in agony. Not instantly. Adrenaline and fear can do that to a person. John himself has wondered why his topmost memories regarding when he'd been shot are not of pain at all. Sherlock seems to excel at ignoring his own pain, be that emotional or physical. And John has ignored all that, too. But it's there, underneath. In glassy looks that linger too long, in grimaces concealed by turning away, in a stiff posture and a cracked facade when a careless word drags to light things Sherlock tries desperately to lock under the floorboards of his Mind Palace.

John knows about the scars. He knows about scars on Sherlock's back, the entry and exit scars from the bullet Mary had fired. He should have realised what Sherlock's comment about morphine to Mrs Hudson had meant. He should have taken in his pallor, his cold sweat, his hunched posture and the urgency in his conduct and made the deduction any doctor should have been able to make when the three of them stood in the sitting room of 221B. Sherlock was in a terrible amount of pain that night and his life was in danger after his desperate mission to reveal to John the truth about his wife had led to a suture line in his partially removed lung to tear and begin bleeding into his pleural cavity.

John had been so wrapped up in himself, curled up in his personal tragedies, drunk on his pride and his anger, that he'd failed to notice the most important person in his life — yes, even then — nearly expiring in front of him.

He doesn't feel confident, now, to face Eurus. Hell, he doesn't even feel confident enough to face Sherlock. Shame burns in his gut when they're together. It's been there even since Sherlock drew a moustache on himself and served him champagne, getting throttled, punched and head butted in return; now, the shame has simply switched form and source. Sometimes he wonders if its size is a constant and only the cause varies. Perhaps he's come here to shed some of it by taking matters into his own hands, by focusing on the most important thing that has happened in Sherlock's life after dwelling on his own disaster zone of a life for so long. John knows he's trying to fix something he doesn't even know how to name. Without a doubt, he's here for Sherlock, but how does he do that when he isn't even sure what is in Sherlock's best interests when it comes to Eurus? _Restoration or alienation? A step back or a step forward?_

He reminds himself that he isn't here to make that decision — only Sherlock can do that. _This is a fact-finding mission._ He also hopes that the data he may be able to provide might help help _Eurus_ decide what it is that she wants, now that she's had her… fun? Her revenge? Her… whatever the hellit had all been. No single word seems to be a good fit to describe her madcap plan.

"Cat got your tongue?" she asks sharply to get John's attention. Her gaze has the same piercing quality as Sherlock's.

Luckily, John is well acclimatised to being stared down by Holmeses. He juts up his chin defiantly to hide his unease and drags his chair a little closer to the glass than before. The sound of its legs scraping the coarse concrete floor echoes unpleasantly; it makes John wonder how quickly this part of Sherrinford was constructed. _If they made a quick job of it, they could have got shoddy. She'd have found any weakness._

"Heavy breakfast?" Her lilting voice taunts, but there isn't that heavy an effort there. "Food makes your brain slower. At least that's what Sherlock thinks about eating in general, especially when he's on a case." There is pride in her tone as if she relishes flaunting her limited knowledge of Sherlock's work in his face.

That's what has always struck John as Eurus' pressure point, the one crack in her facade: her desperation for Sherlock's attention and approval. Not his forgiveness, no — she doesn't understand the concept and John doubts she'd ever be sorry or apologise for what happened with Victor. For terrorising Sherlock. For attempting to kill him. He didn't give her what she wanted, and in her had gathered a perfect storm of a sense of abandonment mutating into a yearning for vengeance. _If she couldn't have him, nobody would._

How little must she have thought of John until she realised his significance to Sherlock. What secrets did she expect to glean from John during those therapy appointments?

It seems to be working, offering these morsels of data John judges to be harmless enough about Sherlock to maintain her interest. This is his only shield against her potential attempts to manipulate him — he can tell her things others can't, not even Mycroft. He knows he's buying attention with a breach of the friendly intimacy between him and Sherlock.

 _Ends justify the means_. That's what he needs to believe.

Eurus tucks her unruly hair behind her ears. It makes him wonder whether it would be curlier if she kept it the same length as Sherlock's; longer hair weighs more. His mind goes off on a tangent: _does she cut it herself? Who could be trusted to be in the same room with her in close enough physical contact?_ John has seen her in wigs, but when it comes to her being… her, and not pretending to be someone else, she does not seem very concerned with her appearance. Likely her intelligence has helped her surpass the usual pressures women feel about their weight and appearance. _Or, maybe it's being stuck here that makes it all irrelevant_.

"Sherlock _was_ always the slow one," Eurus points out apropos. Coming from her, it sounds less of a bad thing than from Mycroft's mouth. "No wonder he liked other dull children. They didn't like him."

John can't help smiling coldly at the crookedness of such a perspective. Usually, in any company, Sherlock will appear to be smarter than everyone else combined.

 _An era-defining genius_ , that's what Mycroft had said about Eurus. Money certainly doesn't buy happiness, and Eurus Holmes is ample evidence that extreme intelligence doesn't, either.

"He was still the one closest to your age," John says. He has wondered if Eurus' ire could have been directed at Mycroft instead, had their age gap been smaller. Mycroft would likely have been much more resistant to her influence. Sherlock, the emotional one, the youngest one of the two brothers,had been terribly ill-equipped to deal with whatever mistreatment she subjected him to. _Any kid would have been_.

No child deserves to be interrogated by the police because their best friend goes missing. It sometimes strikes John so sharply and suddenly that Eurus had been so small when she had knowingly committed her first homicide. _Did she understand the permanence of death?_   _Mycroft seems to think so._

She had claimed she only wanted a friend. Someone to relate to. She'd been just a little girl, so bitter and envious even at that age.

John can't help thinking about Rosie. _What will she be like at the age when Eurus was institutionalised? And what will Sherlock see when he looks at her?_

Eurus had done terrible things to Sherlock, yet she carries his genes. John has done terrible things to Sherlock, too, and Rosie is him. Is she a blank slate, or are there things hidden away in her DNA which might expose her to such paths John and his father had trodden? Was it DNA that condemned Eurus to spending her life here?

A normal child doesn't torture their siblings and kill other children. John likes to think Rosie is a normal child, even if she has Sherlock Holmes as a godfather and a surrogate parent. _Sherlock would be the first to tell me normal is a stupid cultural construct designed to keep those not fitting the definition in line._

Victor Trevor had been a very normal child.

"Adults were more interesting," Eurus dismisses.

John realises he needs to distract himself by continuing it before he manages to shred his own nerves to bits by overthinking. He doesn't like thinking about Rosie when she's down here. A part of it is paranoid thinking — as though Eurus could somehow wrench John's thoughts about her out of his head and use them as a weapon.

John realises that today, right this moment, he really doesn't want Sherlock visiting here. Why the hell hadn't he made this a one-day visit? What is he trying to achieve?

 _The game is on, John_ , Sherlock tells him in his head. Sherlock always plays to the end. And isn't John here because he wants the end, wants to reach the final tally in the battle for Sherlock's soul? The pawns are on the table, and John feels he has no way of knowing if Eurus is losing or preparing a two-move checkmate.

He clears his throat, aware that he's doing it to alleviate his nervousness. "Our suspect's real name was Alex Matthews. Doesn't sound very show-business like, does it?"

"Stage names are an industry standard," Eurus declares in a disinterested tone. "Mandrake is, admittedly, quite a melodramatic one."

_Says a woman whose parents named her after an ancient Greek wind god._

"So, Sherlock seemed reasonably keen on the case; he often can't decide right away how interesting he considers them until he's had a look at the evidence. After Sherlock contacted Lucy's father to tell him we'd take the case, he gave us access to her dorm room at University College. There was little we could find, so this magician guy was the only lead we had. Sherlock decided he needed more contact with him just as I expected. It's just that Sherlock seemed to become more and more interested in him in ways that didn't seem to have anything to do with the case."

 

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A week after the meal with Alex, John faced an irate Sherlock in the kitchen.

"Look, either you're coming along, or you aren't. If you do join me, I'm not going to put up with your constant auguring of doom or your grousing about the arrangements. It's distracting," Sherlock informed him, crossing his arms and snapping his spine straight.

"You can't expect to book us a ride with a potential murderer across a third of England and expect me not to _grouse_ ," John retorted. They did have the precise address, which John had left in the custody of Mrs Hudson who was looking after Rosie for the weekend. John hadn't left her with someone else for several days after going to Sherrinford with Sherlock and Mycroft, so he was on edge.

"How are we going to get back, if we need to make a quick exit from the estate?" All John could hope for was that the bad publicity of anything untoward happening in Mandrake's home would deter the man from harming them.

"Taxis do exist _all over England_ ," Sherlock pointed out with a dramatic eyeroll and a flap of his dressing gown as he headed into his bedroom to finish packing.

On the day of their planned departure, John wasn't surprised that Sherlock commandeered the left front seat after his and John's weekend bags had been deposited in the back of Alex's Lexus RX.

John had whistled quietly when he'd seen the car parked in on the kerb outside 221b. _I think I prefer Mycroft's Bentleys_ , he remembered thinking.

Alex had offered then a ride since he was headed home from London on the day they were due to arrive at his country estate, and he'd suggested they might use the journey to discuss Sherlock's issue further.

Once they managed to escape London traffic into the suburbs, John asked why the mentalist had been originally drawn to his trade instead of focusing on his academic psychologist career.

"I was sort of torn between two worlds. Half of me wanted to escape to a circus all through my school years," Alex answered with a collected chuckle.

To John, this explanation sounded a bit rehearsed, like something he'd given many times in interviews.

"I wanted to continue to university, and I never considered anything but psychology as a major," Alex continued. "In the end, it has helped me understand why things I do on the stage actually work. Magic is based on assumptions and distractions. When you manage to make people's brains miss a beat, so to speak, you're on to something."

"That happens all the time in most people's brains," Sherlock commented, watching as Southern England floated by, roadside foliage blurred into lines by their speed.

"I bet you'd be the nightmare of any tableside performer," Alex laughed.

John then chipped in from the back seat, telling Alex about the time they once attended a posh birthday party with Sherlock due to a case. The evening entertainment had included a hobbyist magician. "You didn't have to make that poor woman cry, you know," John couldn't resist needling his friend.

"I'm not going to stand by while someone in this day and age charges a hefty sum of money for a tired rendition of 'pick a card'," Sherlock announced. Though he couldn't see it, John could well imagine there was an accompanying eye roll.

"Card tricks are an important part of the history of magic, and a vital part to any performer's basic education," Alex berated him playfully. "They teach you dexterity, directing the attention of the audience. There's a lot of the basic psychology of stage magic involved, and when done at close range, you can't afford any mistakes, the technique has to be impeccable for tricks which require dexterity. As for the more manipulative ones: there are fifty-two cards in a standard deck, but most people will pick one out of only four options. It's easy to persuade someone to pick a certain card without them realising."

"And cards are easier to control than, say, animals," John suggested. _Or people_.

"There is an array of classic animal tricks which tend to be audience favourites, but admittedly they can be a bit repetitive. Plus, you have to care for the animals, which requires that you actually like them," Alex said, his tone hinting that this was not his cup of tea.

"We're not here to discuss cups and balls and doves and other parlour tricks, John," Sherlock snapped, making John wonder why he seemed so on edge. Was is some sort of a residual effect from their argument back in the flat?

The next moments passed in silence, which to John felt rather painfully impolite towards their host. Being in the back seat made it awkward to try to defuse things, but he felt obliged to keep the conversation going. "How did you learn hypnosis, then?" he asked, directing his words to Alex.

"Books, talking to people. Didn't really have a teacher. It isn't rocket science. Garden-variety relaxation techniques are a step towards it; it's a matter of directing the focus of someone in a deep relaxation state."

Alex chuckled a bit. "I was shy when I was younger. Doing tricks and hypnotising my mates to think they were getting drunk on water was a way to blend in. When you're a bit unsure of yourself, it's easy to slip on a role. If others don't like it, then you can just console yourself that it's not you they dislike, it's the role. "

 

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"Role-playing? This idiot Mandrake thinks it's that easy to separate himself from a role? What a fool." Eurus curls her lip in dismissal a bit like Mycroft sometimes does.

John considers the idea of role-playing being an important part of Mandrake's trade.  Certainly, Eurus is a master of role-playing and disguise. He'd been fooled not once but twice by her as the flirtatious woman on the bus and the then his therapist.

Sherlock's skills at disguise are legendary, too. Even when he is not pretending to be someone else, his public persona is that of a prickly dick. It is only at home that he lets the mask slip, revealing someone John might find rocking his daughter in his arms in front of a window, reciting poems. There is one he is using practically as a nursery rhyme, and John has learned it, too, by force of heard repetition:

 _Nobody knows this little Rosie––_  
It might a pilgrim be  
Did I not take it from the ways  
And lift it up to thee.  
Only a Bee will miss it––  
Only a Butterfly,  
Hastening from far journey––  
On its breast to lie––  
Only a Bird will wonder––  
Only a Breeze will sigh  
  
Sherlock had seemed apprehensive — embarrassed, even — when he'd heard John reciting it at bedtime to a giggling Rosie.

"I regret that my knowledge of children's entertainment is… limited," he had apologised, lingering in the doorway.

"It's fine, it's lovely," John scrambled to alleviate his worry. "Where is it from?"

"It's a piece from Emily Dickinson, with the word rose modified," Sherlock hastily informed him before stalking off.

Only after John had tracked the original down, had he understood Sherlock's embarrassment. What they'd been reciting was not the entire poem; the last lines had originally been omitted by Sherlock: ' _Ah Little Rose — how easy / For such as thee to die!_ '

It hadn't upset John. _Trust Sherlock to know all the creepy ones_. Besides, Ring-a-ring-a-rosie and all other classic rhymes were hardly any less ominous. In a way, they were all apt reminders of the preciousness of the peace in their home. Rosie could well have picked safer parents, but hardly less boring ones.

John loosens himself from the cocoon of that domestic memory. It doesn't belong inside these prison walls. "Never mind. Something Mandrake said just reminded me of a thing." He sniffs and resumes his story. 

  
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Sherlock finally decided to join the conversation in the car. "How completely and permanently could you make someone lose all memories of an event? I assume this is a vital part of staging the events in your TV specials."

"Volunteers at shows are easy — they're primed to take orders from me since they want to participate. The ones we pluck off the streets after picking them with the help of their friends are always a much riskier bet. There was one bloke who turned out to be much more prone to violence than anyone had thought. The higher-ups at the network decided to pull the plug and we picked a new participant."

"How can you be sure that your reprogramming has worked after a show?" John asked.

"What I do to counter the effects is precisely what I do to cause them. I'd call it de-programming rather than reprogramming. I'd be loath to call it an exact science, and I only have my good track record to show as evidence."

"How have other psychologists reacted to your second career?" Sherlock inquired.

In his behaviour towards Alex John had sensed a strange mix of ridicule towards what Sherlock considered cheap tricks, and what really felt like a genuine, non-case related and vested interest in the man's skills.

"There have been objections expressed by mental health professionals towards stage hypnosis for a long time, but there are no reported cases of adverse long-term effects for a participant."

"Who would report those effects? The one responsible would have a vested interest in keeping all of it out of both the press and scientific journals."

"That's the thing," Alex countered, "While there are ways to prevent a case being reported in peer-reviewed journals, don't you think the tabloids would have found such a case if it had happened?"

Sherlock's brow dipped in reluctant acknowledgement that this might be a reasonable argument.

Alex drummed the steering wheel with his fingers after taking a ramp onto the highway. "My stance is that I use entertainment to educate, write it off as mostly harmless fun. The sceptics who insist that stage hypnosis should be banned, and that hypnosis should only be limited to the use of healthcare professionals probably hate me because of my background. I'm the fly in the ointment," he joked.

The hairs at the back of John's neck were raised because of that very sherlockian metaphor.

"In my early career, I did use shills. I didn't have the confidence yet to be sure I could hypnotise larger audiences. I'm not proud of it, but I've been honest about it. Everyone is a beginner at first." Alex sighed.

"Shills?" John asked.

"Planted audience members who I have been certain are susceptible to hypnosis directed to a larger group of people. It helped ensure I had at least someone at my disposal who I knew I could influence. It was all real, no acting, but still not entirely genuine in terms of audience recruitment."

"Understandable," Sherlock commented, "If your aim is solely to _entertain_." His disdain of the concept was obvious from his prickly tone in pronouncing the word.

For the first time, he seemed to have managed to irritate Mandrake a little. "I never claim that what I do is supernatural. I also try not to strengthen stereotypes and myths about hypnosis."

"Yet every one of your shows features some version of a purported quick induction technique," Sherlock countered, his tone betraying his disbelief at the concept. "That's precisely what people fear about the methods: that anyone could do that to them at any time. Quick induction looks so pedestrianly showy; it can't possibly be real."

As Alex made a left turn on the rainy country road which they were traveling down towards Alton which lay almost at the edge of the South Downs National Park, he leaned forward in the driver's seat to gaze at the sky off the left. "Sherlock, I'm going to need to stop this conversation for a moment to direct you to have a look at those oak trees. There's a large owl sitting there, just about to head to flight, and I need you to watch it to make sure we don't hit it."

Sherlock did as he was told, gazing intently out of the car. Suddenly, Alex removed his hand from the gear stick and slammed that palm hard on the dashboard. Sherlock flinched, startled, his eyes darting forward. With purposeful, sharp and extremely quick movements, Alex then kept his right hand on the steering wheel as he used his left to grab Sherlock's wrist. He yanked the arm forward, then — with a quick, fluent, well-rehearsed movement — slipped the same palm behind Sherlock's neck and said " _Sleep_ ," in a calm, low, commanding tone.

John's jaw dropped as Sherlock instantly went limp, eyes snapping shut. Snaking his left arm around Sherlock's now eerily malleable form, Alex guided his head to rest on his shoulder, his torso leaning on Alex's arm and the side of the driver's seat. He hadn't even taken his eyes off the road.

"Jesus," John exhaled.

"I guess we've established that he _can_ be hypnotised," Alex said mischievously. "That's quick induction 101 for you."

John reached out over the seat back and waved his palm in front of Sherlock's face. There was no reaction.

He had a sudden urge to plead Alex to put Sherlock back the way he was.

"You didn't even do, well, _anything_!" John protested, "You can't make people sleep just by saying sleep!" he argued, wondering if Sherlock and Alex had somehow agreed to make a joke at his expense.

"Can't I?" Alex asked, shoving Sherlock away from him to lean on the passenger seat window instead. "I called him by name, which makes people focus. Then I gave him an order in a calm, low monotone which he obeyed. Then, I startled him. That makes people's brains do a double-take, and that's the key to quick induction, really. Betray their behavioural expectations, and suddenly they're in freefall and you can decide where you want them to land. A common technique is to pretend you're about to shake their hand, but instead you do something unexpected. In that state, when his brain was scrambling to understand what was going on, I blindsided him by making myself the dominant party by grabbing his neck. Dominance is safety, and when we're startled, that's what we instinctively want. That allowed me to take over, and I told him to sleep. Basically, anyone could learn to do a quick induction; the key is attitude. You have to be assertive and not hesitate at any stage, or you'll break the spell, so to speak."

John was quite sure he'd ever want to have such a power over others. To be able to overpower someone like that seemed beyond dangerous. It was one thing to see hypnosis performed in a TV show or read about its uses in psychotherapy in a medical setting; this was… disturbing. Had Sherlock really consented to this just be having a hypothetical discussion days ago with Mandrake? Was this ethical _at all_?

"How do you wake someone up?" John asked, an urgent edge creeping into his tone.

"With a slower induction, I usually prime them to obey certain commands to return to their faculties. With quick induction, anything startling or very attention-grabbing should work nicely. Anaesthetists call out a patient's name to make them wake up quicker. And it doesn't have to even be me who does it," Alex hinted. "With a snap induction the impulse to wake up is not very strongly suppressed. Only as long as we're just talking in a relatively calm manner and there are no sudden changes in the speed or velocity of the car, he'll stay under. It's not a coma, John — if the fire alarm goes off when someone is hypnotized, they'd be running out the door with the rest of the people, assuming they hadn't been specifically programmed to ignore that particular sound and impulse."

" _Programmed?_ " John spat the word out like a bad smell. He had seen the TV special where Alex had done exactly that to convince a person that when they were about to shoot a celebrity at a theatre, they were doing something completely different. Yet, even after seeing what Eurus had done to Moriarty, he didn't want to accept the possibility.

Alex coughed. "Well, that's just trade slang. We don't brainwash people — we help them tap into what's already there. Sometimes things get stirred up that they didn't expect, but this isn't some Svengali or zombie thing."

 _This is madness_ , John thought. _We've agreed to be stuck at this guy's house in the arse end of the South Downs for a weekend. We're mad. He's mad._

Yet, the old pull of the Work was there, the irresistible, reckless temptation of saying yes, of walking right into all this. This is what he and Sherlock did. This was _them_.

He unbuckled his seat belt and scooted to the middle of the back seat, leaning in between the front seats to get a better look at Sherlock. He looked calm, relaxed and lost to the world, eyes closed, face leaning against the side window.

"Sherlock?" he asked and snapped his fingers twice in front of his face. " _Sherlock!_ " he demanded, yelling right into a curl-framed ear.

Soon, eyelids fluttered open and Sherlock seemed to rediscover the fact that he possessed a functioning spinal column. He sat up and turned to face John with a confused but not alarmed expression. "Sorry, must've dozed off."

His frown betrayed the fact that he found such an idea odd — he rarely took naps and never during active cases.

Alex switched on the radio and turned the volume down.

John wasn't sure what to do. Shouldn't Sherlock be told what had just happened?

It didn't take long for Sherlock to put together Alex's secretive smirk and John's concerned frown that something was amiss. "Alright, you two, spit it out."

John returned to his original seat diagonally from Sherlock and reattached his safety belt. "Ask _him_ ," he replied, cocking his head towards Alex.

Mandrake shrugged. "You were sceptical about whether quick induction actually works. With John as my witness, I demonstrated that it does ."

Sherlock's head snapped around to face John, his expression a dismayed question mark.

"It's true. You went out like a light," John said, trying to convey that he hadn't enjoyed witnessing such a thing.

"It's hardly conclusive evidence if I wasn't there to see it. I'm not in a habit of taking someone else's word on things. You'll need to do it on John once we get to Chilgrove."

"No!" John protests. "I'm not taking any part in–– in–– _that_."

"I never hypnotise someone who doesn't want to participate," Alex reassured him.

John wanted to lodge a further protest on behalf of what he saw as Sherlock's lacking explicit consent but remained silent. Antagonising their murder suspect would likely only make Sherlock pissed off at him, and John had a feeling that once they got to South Downs, he'd have to be the one to keep a level head.

 

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John pauses when he notices Eurus looking oddly disappointed. "What?" he asks.

"I always knew he hardly rivalled mine or Mycroft's intellect, but that is…. I didn't expect him to be so–– He just went under? Like that? Couldn't deduce what Mandrake was attempting? I never thought he'd be so weak-minded."

"Weak?" John laughed. "Quite the contrary. If it helps, I originally assumed the same as you: that it's all the weak-willed people are easy to hypnotise, and that someone like Sherlock, whose life philosophy focuses on being sceptical of people's actions and intentions, couldn't be put under. Well, as it turns out, being susceptible has little to do with those things. Anyone who is willing to be hypnotized — who _wants_ to be hypnotized, probably can be."

"Why would he have wanted that?"

"He didn't want to be hypnotized in the car, no, but he was somewhat open to the idea beyond just using it as an excuse to get close to the suspect. When I asked, Mandrake explained to me what the known traits of someone susceptible to deep trance are, and Sherlock actually ticks a lot of those boxes. The Mind Palace thing, especially when he goes in there for extended periods of time, is already a form of self-suggestion; a trance, if you will. Mandrake said that a big part of a hypnotist's job is to show a subject how to reach a state, not to enforce it upon them. If someone is already familiar with the fundamentals of those techniques, it takes the hypnotist less time to reach a deeper state with them."

"I'm aware of how hypnosis works. Its purpose is to reach subconscious processes more easily, which is why it works with memory retrieval. For people lacking an eidetic memory, that is. I have no idea what benefit there would be for Sherlock."

"I saw Alex — Mandrake — hypnotise his housekeeper to help her remember where she'd put her car keys and it worked. People remember things under hypnosis they didn't think they'd be able to recall otherwise. I don't know how that relates to eidetic memory or how much use people who have that could get from hypnosis, but isn't it understandable why the possibility would be attractive for Sherlock?"

"Maybe. Though I doubt quick induction would be enough for that."

"It looks like a gimmick on stage, but I can tell you the whole thing looks pretty bloody frightening when it's being done to someone right next to you."

"So, a hypnosis subject can always bring themselves out of it?" Eurus sounds sceptical.

John wonders how she had managed to enthrall all those people. He very much doubted Sherrinford would have allowed her access to books on such techniques. _She must have worked it out on her own_. The thought makes John shudder.

"Mandrake said that the only time someone's mind would elect to stay under was if the reality was too terrifying or otherwise upsetting to return to. What he also said was that the dissociation abuse and rape victims sometimes report, the way they say they felt as though they were outsiders watching what was going on might be a form of self-trance, an attempt by the brain to check out of what's going on."

That, together with the effects that carbon monoxide poisoning can have on the brain, can explain how Sherlock could have blocked out so much. Yet, even when John knows it's possible, it seems so… incredible, even when he reminds himself how differently Sherlock's brain works.

John doesn't ever remember dissociating out of reality so badly that he'd forget things permanently. Not when he'd been shot. Not when Sherlock had killed himself. Not when Mary had been shot. As a matter of fact, he had never felt more _present_ than at those moments, and he had been reliving them in flashbacks and nightmares ever since.

That same sense of being so acutely in the present, every sense alert and tingling as he readies for battle, is what he is feeling right now in the presence of Eurus.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The explanation of quick hypnosis induction in this chapter strives to be as accurate as one written by a non-expert could be. The listed traits of hypnotic susceptibility are also pluckings from scientific literature instead of convenient conjecture. I was surprised myself to discover how likely Sherlock would be to become a very suitable subject.
> 
> The poem is _Nobody Knows This Little Rose_ by Emily Dickinson.


	6. Nothing Like Her

 

> **We're terrible at realising what goes on in other people's heads because we are trapped inside our own. _  
> _** _—_ _Derren Brown_

 

"How does Sherlock find his cases?" Eurus asks John before he can continue his story.

"People contact him through his blog, or through mine, or find him on Twitter. Sometimes they just show up at the door."

"Does Sherlock inform the police when someone brings him a case which involves a potential homicide?" Eurus asks. Her tone signals distaste at the prospect.

"No, it's usually the other way around, the police come to him. He often investigates things that _should_ be reported to the police, but he thinks it would only slow him down to have to deal with them. Besides, there's no point in doing that before we establish that a crime really has been committed."

Eurus' lip curls up and for a moment, John is painfully acutely reminded of Sherlock before all the heartache of these late days. _Sherlock, more innocent. Younger. More giddily enthusiastic and reckless._

Yet, what he sees on her face is not quite a smile of innocence, but one not yet weighed down by regret. Maybe it's part of what makes her so dangerous — no remorse, no regret, no weakness of sentiment, no empathy. Sometimes, during his darker moments, John wonders if it would be liberating to live as Eurus does, free of a conscience. If he was like that, when he looks at Sherlock now, he wouldn’t be so painfully aware of his own mistakes.

Not ready to dwell more on those yet, John continues the story.

 

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Luxury-wise, the house in Chilgrove was on a par with Alex's car. Up on a small hill in a thick copse, it sported wall-to-ceiling windows, a low slanted roof and immaculately arranged, simplistic stone adornments up front. Everything looked quiet and serene. John could spot at least eight surveillance cameras in the front alone, and to get to the house they had driven through a heavy metal gate, the lock of which opened and closed with a scanner utilising Alex's fingerprint.

Alex had seemed to catch John's wary gaze in the rear-view mirror as he activated it, since he had volunteered the fact that exiting the grounds required nothing more than pressing a button on the inside of the gate.

"Contrary to what the tabloids would have you believe, this is not a prison and I have nothing to hide. It's just that a celebrity status has garnered some unwanted attention. You're not the only ones who have asked for my help, and some people don't take it kindly when I decline. And any public performer will sooner or later gain a stalker or two or someone who thinks you're their dream partner."

John had left the question that occurred to him unasked: did Mandrake only help those who might help him along in his career, or those who could pay the most? Sherlock would certainly be a star attraction on the screen if he agreed to participate in a TV special — at least that was the red herring that was being dangled before the mentalist.

Alex prompted them to exit the car and walk up to the door before depositing the vehicle in a garage at the end of the driveway.

The last rays of sunlight were reaching only the top parts of nearby trees, and low, lantern-like garden lamps were already lit. They cast circular shadows on the stones surrounding the gravel pathway. All the stonework was surrounded by whitish sand — around the house, there was no grass or flowers. The style was distinctly Japanese, as was a woman receiving them at the door.

Alex hurried up the low steps to the door from the garage and squeezed past John to hold the door open to them. "This is Minako, my assistant and the architect of the estate; we met when she designed the place. She fancied a change of career, and I fancied her," he joked.

The woman's expression was nearly waxen and her flawlessly symmetrical, polite smile cold. She stepped gracefully aside to allow the three of them to enter the foyer. "That fancy was short-lived. Welcome."

John decided he didn't like her.

Sherlock was already shedding his coat which Minako took off his hands. John shoved their bags away from the door so that it could be closed. He had carried them both in while Sherlock was scrutinising God-knows-what in the exterior wall near the entrance.

Minako disappeared deeper into the house while Alex lead his guests into the kitchen. There, a tea set waited with the pot still steaming. John retreated his steps to glance back into the foyer and noticed that their bags had disappeared.

"Apart from her, I employ a housekeeper and a gardener. There are some friends staying here this weekend, but they mostly hang in the annex — these are the cultists the tabloids want to believe I'm harbouring," Alex laughed. "I'm not going to claim they're the most ordinary of people, but instead of us being some sort of a witches' coven, it's more about me thinking that if my friends are not good enough for this house, then I am not good enough for it either. I've explained to them that I have some work to do this weekend, which they're used to. Feel free to make their acquaintance, but don't feel obligated to do so."

John tried to gauge his bland tone for hidden meaning, coming up short. He hoped that Sherlock would have been able to read more into Mandrake's carefully controlled conduct. To John, it all felt like an act, but he couldn't put his finger on why. It could just be that, in the course of his well-curated career, Alex had adopted the manners of a businessman. He was an academic as well, of course, but on first meeting, had John not known who Mandrake was, John would have guessed a City banker rather than a performer or a psychologist.

Without asking if they want some, Alex poured them mugs of green tea.

Sherlock lifted the narrow, handle-less mug he was given up to eye level. "Raku ceramics. No signature or label on the bottom, and the colours are almost monochrome save for the red glaze with which the black is mottled. I doubt you'd use centuries-old antiques as everyday wares, so I'd say this is a modern-day imitation of the style of Ichinuy the fourth."

John was used to Sherlock having a huge knowledge base of the most esoteric subjects, but this was impressive even by his standards.

Alex nodded, visibly impressed as well. "A gift from Minako. I couldn't comment on how old they are. But, even if they were from the early seventeenth century — Ichinuy died in 1696, what is the point of a beautiful vessel if it's just hidden away in a cupboard or a museum? If a teacup is not used for the purpose it was created for, at which point does it cease to be a teacup?"

John had never liked green tea. Sherlock would drink it when done well, which John suspected this batch was, but if it came from a bag, Sherlock would most likely grimace and say that he didn't enjoy drinking infused grass clippings. John remembered the teapots they had seen during the Black Lotus case — unless they were regularly used they would crack and dim, become useless. This made him then think about Sherlock; how his brain needed a constant source of engagement, of excitement and exercise, lest it tear itself to pieces. For months, now, casework had been slow because of the family drama. Sherlock needed this, needed the thrill of the chase, and John wishes that he could push aside whatever personal interest he might have in Mandrake's skills and focus on Lucy Cushing.

"Japanese masters used to use lead for the glaze, and many of them likely developed chronic lead poisoning," Sherlock mused. "Non-lead frit is the standard nowadays, even in Japan, but even now heavy metals colour many of the shades. Raku is porous and thus not recommended for food or drink."

Alex's lip quirked up. "Only for special occasions, then. Judging by what I've read about you, I'm sure you don't always follow protocol," he said to Sherlock.

John rolled his eyes. Even though Alex's tone was not flirtatious, it was obvious he was _playing_. Perhaps taking a step in his recruitment plan?

Sherlock raised his cup. "It seems that whoever added this thin, additional, clear modern glaze on this to ruin the vibrant texture which Raku is known for, was less of a risk-taker than you.  No wonder they never signed the bottom of their handiwork."

Alex's expression soured, but only briefly.

John secretly smiled behind his own cup, held in both hands. Sherlock loved nothing better than to take fake experts down a peg.

"There's a twin guest room in the west wing where we're put you. Beds can be pushed together to make up a double. Up to you," Alex said, and his tone was without the usual innuendo about the nature of John and Sherlock's relationship.

John closed his eyes in relief. Wherever they travelled together, this subject matter always came up. Alex's approach was definitely among the most graceful ones yet.

During the last twenty minutes of the drive, John had brushed up on his knowledge of Alex through a quick online search regarding his shows. He and Sherlock had watched what they could find online, but the very last one had only just aired so the usual streaming services did not carry it yet. In it, a seemingly random person had been selected and groomed through hypnosis to push a man from a cliff, thinking it was a part of a commercial for a charity. The man had auditioned for another one of Alex's shows, a sham one that was never filmed, and told he didn't get the part. That's how he'd signed a waiver. When John raised the subject, Alex seemed to think this made it all alright, but John found himself disagreeing.

"But they didn't sign up for _that_ , did they?" John had argued, "Killing someone."

"It has been established before, that under hypnosis people can and _will_ do things they wouldn't otherwise. Hypnotising someone to commit murder does not automatically mean they would commit one when not under that influence. Some critics wouldn't shut up about what they saw as discrepancies in the assassination show, so I had to do it again."

Presumably Alex knew the truth regarding whether it was all real or not — why wasn't that enough? Why would he pander to critics? It all seemed suspect to John. _Must be quite a power trip, getting people to do what they normally wouldn't._ Compared to involuntary homicide, making someone remember or forget something — which must be a vital part of making the participants of Mandrake's shows forget they had been hypnotised — suddenly sounded like a relatively minor misdemeanour.

The discussion lingered in John's mind as they sipped their tea and darkness fell behind their backs in the garden; even the kitchen had huge windows. John wasn't sure if it was something about Alex and the isolated location that put him on edge, or if his imagination had been whipped into a gallop by the talk in the car.

Alex glanced at his watch. "I'll see you in an hour; I'm afraid I have some urgent emails to sort out. John, feel free to have a look around, make use of the library and the movie room if you like. I suspect Sherlock might wish to continue our lunch discussion in more detail?"

Sherlock nodded, placing his half-consumed cup of tea on the kitchen counter. His gaze was sweeping the room and he seemed to perk up his ears every time there was a sound from somewhere else in the house. They were here to solve a disappearance, after all. Sherlock was probably mentally mapping the premises, scouting out the security systems, perhaps even trying to discern where one might hide a body. John tried to tell himself to calm down, to trust Sherlock to be vigilant for the both of them.

Alex volunteered to show them the way to their room, first leading them through a spacious atrium furnished with chrome and glass, and then past an inner courtyard with a retractable sunroof, before arriving in the guest wing. The courtyard was very small, and there was no ground — instead all of it consisted of a koi carp pond. Something about the fish swimming around in a circle in that geometric, sparsely decorated space made John's unease bloom once again.

"The retractable roof is a clever idea," Sherlock muttered into his ear as he fell into a swift step beside John. "English winters can be hard on koi unless the pond is deep enough," he mused.

They passed the movie room mentioned earlier, one wall of it featuring a very large aquarium. Large, slow, flat fishes were meandering around it. John found their turquoise, labyrinthine colouring beautiful and a bit hypnotic.

"Symphysodon," Sherlock said as though he was pointing out something obvious. "Discus fishes."

"Well spotted," Alex complimented, stopping briefly to peer into the tank. "Do you keep fish?"

"No. What I keep is an inventory of things that might be useful for my work. Discuses are Amazonian river species, notorious for how carefully controlled an aquatic environment they require to thrive."

"Fancy and fickle," Alex joked, "Like us, I guess." He shot Sherlock a sideways glance, "That's if you listen to the tabloids."

Steel flashed in Sherlock's gaze, and the laugh lines usually slightly visible around his eyes when he was relaxed tensed and disappeared.

John wondered if Alex might have been referring to a recent piece about Sherlock in the press, ' _High-brow Holmes still a bachelor — is no one in London good enough?_ ' Maybe raising the issue was Alex's payback for the ripe embarrassment Sherlock had delivered in the kitchen.

Finally, the door closed behind the two of them, leaving them in a spacious guest bedroom decorated in shades of grey and white. Sherlock took over the bed by the door without even asking which one John would prefer. He was fine with the one pushed up against the window — strangely enough, the glass felt warm to the touch. There was underfloor heating, so John wouldn't be surprised if some fancy device was integrated into the windows, too.

Sherlock took off his jacket and rolled up his shirtsleeves. "Right. Plan. You find out what you can about the house, and these so-called _friends_ staying here. We can't assume that whoever made Lucy disappear was necessarily Alex. Anyone staying in these premises — ever someone who might have already left, could have been the culprit. It's likely that he has told some people to vacate the area since we were coming, although he most likely does not suspect we're here for a case. I'd like to keep it that way. Be discreet but try to find out who has recently left. That's by far more important than who've been left behind to distract us."

"I do that while you… what?" John sat on his bed, planted his palms on the bedspread and tried to make Sherlock stop pacing with a stern look. "Sherlock… No lies, we agreed, not even those of omission. Are we here just for the case?"

Sherlock drew in a breath, his hasty steps coming to a halt before John, who could see on his features that he was negotiating with himself how much to share. "No, we're not. I mean to find out if Mandrake's skillset could be utilised to assist with my memory issues. Of course, he's not the only one in possession of those skills. If he ends up incarcerated for murder, at least I will have some idea how it could all work."

Eurus claps her hands, a smile on her face. "Sherlock's using this man to re-discover _me_! To make any sense of this, he's going to have to tell him about me!"

Though her giddy excitement is very similar to that of Sherlock and John loves witnessing the latter, when it's Eurus doing it, he gets terribly nervous. He'd seen her like this several times during their first visit to Sherrinford.

Right now, she appears so morbidly delighted that John can't resist puncturing her balloon. "He wasn't. Not at all. When I asked him that, he said he wasn't an idiot. You know we can't really… We can't tell people about you, because that would expose this place."

He is not about to tell her the truth, not yet at least. In fact, he decides to leave her guessing, excusing himself and saying he needs a break but would return later.

  
  
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Over a cup of tea back in his guestroom, John has an epiphany. What he's doing with Eurus — trying to get something out of her while concealing his intentions — is the same tactic Sherlock had used with Alex. Just like Sherlock had wanted to get something out of Mandrake without revealing his motives or the existence of Eurus, John is trying to tell the story to Eurus without revealing what Sherlock was really after, and he's not even sure if he can reveal the true ending of the case to her. What purpose would that serve?

 _God, I really am plunging into this half-assed,_ he curses and sips the now lukewarm tea. He needs to decide what — if anything — to share with her regarding how the conversation he'd been recounting had continued.

John had asked, "You find out how memory retrieval through hypnosis works.  Then what?"

Sherlock looked almost sheepish for a moment, as though he had decided to keep something from John at first but then his resolve had weakened under the scrutiny.  Or maybe it was the promise they'd made over cake while Sherlock was still detoxing from his cocaine-and-God-knows-what binge.

No more lies. No more leaving the other in the dark about what was going on.

"Then what?" John pressed.

"I know one weekend won't be enough to properly explore the potential. I have been wondering if---" John's deepening scepticism must have shown on his face since Sherlock trailed off.

John opened the zipper of his bag just to give him something to do besides staring Sherlock down. "If---?"

"It's obvious, assuming those shows are not fake, that Mandrake's skill can influence not only the parameters of people's expected behaviour, but also their motivation. Granted, some of his manipulations fall onto a rather grey area of consent, but if the end result is that someone's life is improved, wouldn't you think...?" Sherlock left his suggestion open-ended.

It wasn't much of a leap of imagination to deduce what he was getting at. It wasn't like Sherlock to pin his hopes on what was probably at least partly an elaborate hoax staged for a TV audience. Even if it was all real, who could possibly think manipulating someone to be _different_ was alright?

Instead of expressing his outrage, John realised he had to find an angle Sherlock would be willing to consider. A shouting match or an attempt to just tell Sherlock off wouldn't work. "Psychopathy can't be cured. Not even with hypnotism. There's plenty of research that points to therapy actually having the potential to make it worse, teaching the person to better manipulate others. Remember what happened to all those professionals sent in to evaluate Eurus? She certainly made them do things they wouldn't normally do," John told him pointedly, yet trying not to be openly confrontational.

He couldn't pinpoint precisely why he felt so angry. Was it because they were undertaking an undercover mission, yet Sherlock's focus was split if not completely off course? Or was it the notion that Eurus was taking over his priorities in a way that overtook the Work beyond this case, threatening the precarious peace they were building at home?

Eurus is his sister. To completely walk away from her would be… understandable, but not in Sherlock's nature. He was like a hunting dog after a rabbit, willing to rip itself bloody as it tore through hedges, willing to run itself to the ground chasing after an elusive price. No, Sherlock never gave up, no matter the cost. That's why he needed John. That's why he needed other people to demonstrate where his limits were.

It was understandable that Sherlock wanted to help the sister he'd lost, that he wanted to make up for the lost years. Maybe he felt guilty for not remembering. Still, this was not the way.

John slid off the bed and joined Sherlock where he had been standing, laying a gently hand on his bicep. "Look, bringing in more people to see her is risky in itself. Some stage magician is not going to manage what even trained professionals have failed at. You can't even be sure Alex would be willing to see her."

Sherlock had frowned, crossing his arms which forced John to remove his hand lest his fingers get pinched between Sherlock's arm and his wrist. "He wouldn't be seeing her. _I_ would. I've been told I have some skill in manipulating others. I'm sure the basics of hypnotism are not a massive endeavour to learn."

"She manipulated you! They _all_ manipulated you, the whole bloody Holmes clan, even if they meant well!" John exclaimed, taking a step back. "They let you believe she was _dead_ , and now you're desperately trying to come to terms with that, and this is _not the way_!" He emphasized his words with his finger stabbing the air towards the floor. "No one should have their memories — or any other part of their minds — tampered with without their consent. Is that the relationship you want with her — one you _forced_ on her? You want to change her, fine, but is that any better than what other people have done to you, if you can't do it without tricks and coercion?"

On an intellectual level, John knew this might not be anywhere close to the most terrible thing Sherlock had considered doing — or done — to other human beings, but the very notion of it had run chills down his spine. They never talked about the two years Sherlock was gone. He must have done some terrible things. And John was fine with that, because he believed that Sherlock's greater intentions had been good. But this… he didn't need to do this. He didn't need to resort to what had been done to him.

 _I can't ask Sherlock about those two years, because I couldn't face the depths of such devotion — to what he would willingly submit himself for me_.

Instead of listening, of trying to understand, John had unleashed his anger that day in the guest bedroom. "I understand why you think you need to remember, and it's fine if you want to consult some expert for it. But it's not going to _fix_ her. You need to stop looking for a parlour trick to make her _not evil_!" John protested. "She tried to kill me. And Mycroft. She burned your house down to get rid of you and drew pictures of you dead. She killed Victor, and a lot of people after that. It's like that doesn't even register with you!"

Sherlock was breathing heavily, looking like he was about to bolt. "Victor was… complicated," he complained, voice high-pitched and distressed.

John stepped closer and sighed, running a palm down Sherlock's arms. He felt very sorry for his friend and partner, then, for the hurricane that had trailed a path through his life. For the fact that it would take a long time for Sherlock to sort through the debris of that destruction.

"What happened to Victor wasn't complicated," John said quietly. "You've only recently learned the truth, and it's fucking hard to accept. You need to give yourself time––"

Sherlock stepped back, retreated from his touch and looked at him through he didn't even know him. "She didn't try to kill you, she didn't mean it that way, that was just an experiment!"

John had gaped. "Are you hearing yourself?"

"I accept that you have no need to see her as redeemable, that it's logical for you to judge her to be beyond help, but if _I_ can learn certain things, how to manage with people, then she can, too. With some assistance, of course," Sherlock emphasised.

John felt tired and overwhelmed. "We can't know that. She's not you. She's _so_ not you. You're allowed to forgive her and to want to help, but this is going too far. You can't put your own life on hold for her or let her bring you down like this. You don't owe her anything."

"We abandoned her. Who knows how much of what she has done is because no one tried to help her? If I'd been locked up in a cage like that, who knows how similar to her I might have become? We don't just owe her a chance; we owe her _everything_."

"She's not you, Sherlock. She's _nothing_ like you."

"I don't know her, do I? You don't know her. That's the point."

"Sherlock---"

Now, weeks after that conversation John knew for certain that Sherlock wasn't going to back down. John knew him well enough to know _that look_.

After their conversation, Sherlock had skulked off somewhere, presumably to scout the house while trying to shake off his anxiety. John lay down on the bed and stared at the ceiling, trying to console himself with the fact that one weekend was certainly not going to turn Sherlock into some mind-controlling master mentalist, nor was it likely even enough to explore his memory issues at depth. Still, he'd hoped that his words of warning would be enough.

Half an hour later, Sherlock had stormed back into the room. John sat up, stretching his neck.

"What are you still doing here? We've got work to do!" Sherlock announced indignantly. "I'm due to talk to Alex in ten minutes."

"I know. Just… _please_ keep in mind that this is a potential murderer we're hanging out with. It isn't like you to want to trust someone with these sorts of things without knowing them well and having done a comprehensive background check. All we know about Alex is what he says, what he writes about himself in his books, and how he acts on stage. Nothing else."

Sherlock grabbed a chair and begun rummaging around his own overnight bag.

"I know what it's like when your sister isn't talking to you because of family drama," John offered.

"Eurus probably thinks I picked you over her. That I picked a friend over her. Again." Sherlock sounded bitter.

Usually, John would have given that statement a wide berth, assuming Sherlock hadn't really mean he might regret not prioritising consoling his murderous psychopath sibling instead of hurrying to save John from drowning in the same well down into which Eurus Holmes had pushed an innocent little boy all those years ago. He _knew_ Sherlock didn't mean that he regretted any of it. Yet, the anger still flared up.

In the present, the dregs of tea in John's cup taste bitter, making him wonder where Sherrinford gets its drinking water. A faint, briny scent lingers in the bathroom when he takes a shower or flushes the toilet.  As he abandons the mug down on the bedside table, the same question comes to his mind now as it had back then at Alex's house: why isn't he at home with his daughter?  Why had he gone, then, to a strange house, watching from the sidelines yet again as Sherlock pulled some stupid, reckless stunt that endangered his life or his health or his sanity or the same of those close to him?

After the Culverton Smith… _thing_ , John had thought that he could maybe manage it all: the Work with Sherlock, Sherlock's issues, his medical work, being a single parent to Rosie. That they could work it all out together, find a balance.

What John hadn't factored in was a dangerous psychopath sibling suddenly popping up, freed from where Mycroft had stashed her for years and years. Eurus Holmes is what stands between them and the balance John craves. She represents nothing but the past, a past of nothing good, and he clings to their life like a parasite vine. And Sherlock refuses to cut her down.

Given how things subsequently turned out, John knows he was hasty in what deteriorated into an argument. He'd snapped out, "Well sod everyone else then, even if they end up getting killed while you try to fix a psychopath!"

Sherlock had flinched at his outburst. For a moment, he just stood there, hands outstretched on his sides as though frozen in place. He'd had that look on his face, a look John had rarely seen — helpless, unsure what to do, _afraid_.

Afraid of _him_.

A sickening, cold stone had settled into John's stomach. It's still there now, weeks later.

He never had the right to punish Sherlock for desperately scrambling to deal with a family drama the likes of which no one could possibly have the ability to deal with. No right at all. Especially since, for a long time before that, everything in their lives had been about John — his choices, his desperation, his wedding, his wife, his wife and his loss.

Now, Sherlock had been left reeling by the revelations of late. Didn't he have the right to assume John would now stand by him?

God, he'd been so stupid. Just when he'd needed to get a grip, just when he'd needed to make sure that Sherlock wouldn't decide that he wasn't to be trusted or relied on, he had done the worst thing and relented. _I should have marched us right out of that fucking house._

Then again, if he'd done so, he wouldn't have found out about Sherlock's real reason for seeking Alex out. There was Lucy, of course there was Lucy, but there were other skeletons, too, and John still had no idea how to begin addressing them with his… partner? Best friend? His… person.

"Look," he had said pleadingly to Sherlock, "I just don't feel comfortable with you doing this without someone else present than just him." John cocked his head towards where they'd come into the guest wing. "I don't trust him, and you must realise you shouldn't, either. Putting yourself in a vulnerable position in relation to him, while we're potentially trying to reveal him as a murderer is just not on."

"As I said," Sherlock replied, shifting his weight so that his body seemed to slightly fold in on itself, shoulder hunched protectively as he leaned slightly on the back of a chair beside his assigned bed, "One weekend is hardly going to offer a lot of progress. I need your eyes and ears working on the case, unobservant as they may be, while I keep Alex out of the way."

John should have seen the problem, read it in Sherlock's body language, and forced the issue. If he'd just listened, just asked, just made Sherlock feel like he could talk to John, _really_ talk to John instead of risking so much…

But, John did nothing but lamely say: "Just promise that you won't shut me out."

Sherlock nodded, then glanced at a wall clock. "Dinner is in an hour and a half. I'll see you then."

He stalked out of the door — presumably to find Alex. John tried to call out after Sherlock, but his familiar footsteps were already echoing away down the hall.

  
  
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John's recriminations over what had happened three weeks ago are brought to a halt when there is a knock on the door. "Phone call for you, Sir," one of the guards informs John.

They step out to the antechamber, and the man — carrying a n assault rifle just like all of his colleagues — passes him what looks like a larger-than-usual mobile. _Satellite phone?_

"Yeah?" John answers. He feels reluctant to give his name. Anything could happen in this place, and his identity isn't a currency he should spend frivolously.

"Good evening," Mycroft's stentorious tone greets him.

"Oh, it's you." John tries to curb the disappointment. Sherlock calling him would have meant that his cover had been blown, but Eurus still makes him so uneasy that having backup even in the form of a call from the man would feel reassuring. That's what Sherlock always is, even when he's the one dragging John head-first into danger.

"I trust the practical arrangements are acceptable?"

"It's all fine, yeah. Can't say it's much fun being back here, but it is different from last time."

"A lot of effort has been put into making it so."

"I can imagine."

"I doubt it."

"Did you want something? I was with her just now," John says needlessly.

Mycroft has probably heard every word he's spoken with Eurus. Has he said something he shouldn't have? It is supposed to be a private conversation they are having, but the only things he wouldn't want Mycroft knowing are things he wouldn't want Sherlock knowing because they have to do with private Sherlock-related matters, and he's hardly going to discuss _those_ with Eurus Holmes.

"Sherlock called me, suspicious of the fact that you'd left your phone behind. He wanted details of the venue of this mystical medical conference you are attending — his words, not mine — so he could contact you."

John curses. He had been forced to leave his phone behind at Brize Norton for security reasons before boarding the helicopter flight. Of course, Sherlock would get worried — John always answers his messages as soon as he can. Always. Well, except for when they weren't speaking after Mary died. When he was trying to pretend Sherlock was no longer a part of his life — as though such a state of affairs would ever be possible.

Even when he'd been dead, Sherlock had been a part of his life — perhaps even a bigger part than when the man had still been alive. After Sherlock had jumped from the Barts roof, the grief had swallowed John whole. Without Mary, he'd have stayed in the darkness of that whale's belly like Jonah. A widower forever in black. Sometimes he wondered if Sherlock truly understood what it had been like.

And sometimes he wonders if he had still had the easier part of the two of them.

 _We don't talk about those years, even though I know we should_.

"What should I do?" John asks Mycroft.

"Nothing. I've talked him into leaving you be for some metaphorical _me_ time, as the saying goes. He doesn't understand these things so is prone to taking the advice of others regarding them. He mostly worried about you being out of touch if something arose with Rosamund. I assured him that if such a thing happened, I would find a way to reach you. He seemed suspicious of the timing of my call and my dismissal of the possibility that something worrying was going on with you. I told him he was being his usual, paranoid self, and that it would do him well to contact DI Lestrade for a case to occupy his mind."

"Thank you," John says, wondering if such a courtesy ever means anything to Mycroft. Does he ever enjoy praise for when he's done well? What is it that drives the man, beyond duty for queen and country? Is it enough when _he_ knows he has performed admirably? Now that John knows of Sherrinford and the heavy burden of lies Mycroft has had to carry, he likes to think he understands the man's motivations better. He would still never claim to have cracked the mystery of either Sherlock _or_ his siblings, and this weekend trip to Hades is hardly going to achieve that either. The most John thinks he can achieve is an assessment of danger level.

They end the call and he returns to Eurus.

"Call from Mycroft?" she asks, sounding disinterested.

"Who else," John says.

He wonders how she has been able to deduce that fact but gives an internal shrug. Sherlock has been able to deduce almost everything about him, so perhaps it isn't so surprising that his sister would be able to do the same — and more, if she truly is an unparalleled genius in his generation.

John doesn't take a seat. He needs a longer break and the brief respite he's just had has made him realise that. "Sherlock's suspicious and I doubt what Mycroft's said to him to fix it will be adequate."

Eurus crosses her arms. The stiff fabric of her flame-proof and suicide-proof clothes makes her look like a porcelain doll perched on a stand. "You do realise he'll know where you've been the second he sees you again?"

"He might, or he might not."

Something passes through Eurus' features, knits her brows together and weaves a knowing smile on her lips. "You hate lying to him. I thought it was your _thing_ , what you get off on — being around people who have the power to deceive you."

"No." Finally, she gets something dead wrong, and it's _glorious_. "I get off on danger, as Sherlock would tell you. I don't like being lied to — who the hell would?"

"Fair enough, though your propensity for profound self-deception would be one piece of evidence to the contrary. You punish harshly those who do you wrong and who keep you in the dark, but you never quite kick them out completely. You forced Sherlock to watch you get married, and you forced your wife to put up with the fact that you were effectively committed to another already when you met her. You punish people and prolong the agony by not letting them escape."

"Come on," John snarls at her, stepping closer. "That the best you've got?  You can do better than that," he taunts with a vile smile.

"Maybe you enjoy seeing what people will do for you. Small, insignificant GP John Watson concealing the sadist underneath. You don't get off just on danger, you get off on dangerous people who can't seem to leave _your_ orbit. It's flattering, it's addictive, it bloats the ego. Mary should have run for her life. My brother should have run a thousand times. You like to blame his penchant for danger for the fact that without _you_ , he wouldn't have jumped, he wouldn't have shot Magnussen, wouldn't have been sent to exile, wouldn't have nearly lost function in his kidneys to make you help him. It's a particularly perverse form of Munchausen-by-proxy: you get off on extreme people being driven to extremes because of you."

John steps closer to the glass, fingers curling into fists. "You can blame me for whatever you like, but not the one thing that matters the most, which are the events set to motion all those years ago, decades before I met Sherlock. You can blame me for every other fucking thing, but you cannot blame me for what _you_ did to him, what you did to Victor. What you're trying to do to him, _even now_ , if my hunch is right. You'll never stop lying to him, deceiving him, plucking his strings, hurting him just to see what happens, making him think there's a chance someone will wave a bloody wand and turn you into a happy family. I will take responsibility for choices he made which I should have stopped, and I will take responsibility for hurting him, but no one will never be able to blame me for _you_."

Having said his piece, John marches out, wishing there was a door he could have slammed in his wake.

 


	7. It Is In My Memory Locked

 

> **What we determine we often break. Purpose is but the slave to memory.**  
>  _— William Shakespeare_
> 
>  

After marching out of the underground suite, John feels claustrophobic, frustrated and furious with himself. What the bloody hell had he let himself expect from Eurus?

Of course, he had never thought he might cause any sort of a positive change in her behaviour — after all, that's what Sherlock had been attempting, and at which he kept failing. A part of John may have _hoped_ to influence her to be mindful of how much Sherlock has been through and how willing Sherlock is to risk his life and health and sanity for others, but would that ever work? Does she feel any sort of genuine sympathy towards her brother, or is Sherlock just a test subject, a lab animal to be poked and prodded for interesting reactions? Is it naive of John to expect any benign intentions from someone who had been the very cause of much of Sherlock's pain and grief?

Much, but not all. She's not responsible for Mary, as convenient as it would have been to pin that on Eurus as well. John would like nothing better than to blame it all on one person, to vilify someone already behind bars and to walk away. To have such a simple closure.

 _No_. Mary is gone because of who she is. Who she _had been_. And Mary alone had taken responsibility for that as she lay in John's arms, bleeding out. John had refused to accept that, refused to blame anyone but Sherlock.

Sherlock got hurt once again because John would rather lash out than face the contents of his own head and the consequences of his own choices. He knows this, he _knows_ it, but being aware of it does nothing to make it easier.

 _'It's what you like',_ Mary had confirmed, apologetic but firm. That night, at Baker Street, John had felt like he was the subject of an intervention for an addict.

Does he _want_ Eurus to drag him through it all, to deduce him more brutally than Sherlock ever would, to throw his secrets in his face and make him crawl around as penance for the carnage? Is he drawn to her because she will tell him the truth because she will spare him none of it? Or is she manipulating him? Preying on his own internal confusion? Does he see this as some sort of punishment? Is it some sort of an easy way out — do this, grovel, carry the shame and then go home and face his best friend and he won't have to talk about it, any of it?

Why does talking to Sherlock scare him worse than risking his neck out here, locked inside this rock in the middle of the ocean, this cold, damp _hell?_ Does a part of him want Eurus to say things out loud for him, with Sherlock in the safety of 221B instead of being present to hear any of it?

He finds it so hard, this sort of thing.

_Fuck._

Ever since Sherlock came back from the dead, John has felt like he's playing catch-up with his own life. He's forever chasing, fingers extending towards the lapels of Mary and Sherlock, never quite within reach. He's always veering off course, one foot on each side of a chasm. Married, yet texting with that dark-haired woman from the bus. Running wild in London with Sherlock yet attempting normality by dating women a part of him knew beforehand would mean nothing to him. Here, but not quite present. Always an escape plan, always one foot out the door.

Until Rosie was born. And that was the best _and_ the worst thing that had happened to him because it revealed his priorities. It made him face the part of him that always wanted to run, never wanted to commit, never wanted to stay, never wanted to plan a future. He had needed Afghanistan, needed the Schrödinger's bullet that may or may not hit him tomorrow, next week, the next hour, the next minute. After Mary died, he had tried to run, but Sherlock was always at his heels, ready to drag him back to the finality, the permanence he had feared worse than death.

Now, after everything, he had finally begun to wonder if it was such a frightening thing, after all. Rosie needed that stability, that permanence, and John had recently realised how badly Sherlock — his impulsive, quicksilver, often childish, irresponsive, beloved Sherlock — needed it, too. And John wanted nothing more than to give it to the two of them. Maybe it was as good as running from things, deciding to do it for other people, but if that was the motivation that was going to felt him repair his life, to scrape its dregs back together, so be it.

And that had to begin with taking responsibility. It was him; he did it, his hand struck the blow that made Sherlock's nose cartilage permanently a little crooked because he refused to have it looked over at an A&E and John wasn't there to make him. His foot had delivered the kick that broke three of Sherlock's ribs. His fist had drawn his friend's blood. He would kill with his bare hands and without hesitation anyone who dared to slither into Sherlock's life and favour. Yet all he's done lately is to treat him badly.

The need to keep Sherlock safe is a visceral compulsion the strength of which frightens him, but the way it had evaporated with Mary's death had scared him even worse. That's what had made him feel so detached, so drifted away from his life, until Sherlock interfered. That's what Sherlock — and Mary in her posthumous message — had been so infuriatingly right about John: that he would never be so angry that he wouldn't try to save Sherlock. Before, John had justified his protectiveness with the fact that Sherlock has not been graced with even a modicum of self-preservation skills. Headfirst into the Thames after a piece of evidence? You got it. Tackle a suspect into a ditch and twist an ankle? Negligible. It makes John feel needed, necessary, and _wanted_ when he's the one to mop up the aftermath. Mary's fierce independence had made him feel the opposite: emasculated.

It was hard to accept how even people who do know Sherlock don't _observe_ , they don't see what's right in front of them: the shadow that moves across the man's gaze when someone calls him a freak, the way he plays his knuckles like a piano behind his back as he grips his fist when he's nervous and trying to appear calm, the way he irons his underwear behind closed doors, the sweet tooth he has and the sense of humour he's afraid to share because he's been hurt so many fucking times by others. Eurus doesn't see it, John does, and he doesn't care if it's one of his life missions to make sure no one ever again abuses the trust Sherlock has given him. Least of all the one who broke him in the first place. He realises that whether Sherlock wants him to or not, he has to be the voice of reason here.

Maybe someone _should_ question why he feels so possessive about Sherlock. It's been there since Irene, that ugly black thing at the back of his mind. He has wanted to call it protectiveness, but it's a euphemism. It's somehow safer than the truth.

That moment in the morgue… It had been as much about him as it had been about Mary and Sherlock. Sitting in the interrogation room with Greg afterwards, what had gone through his head had been Sherlock's words about him at the wedding, and his own at Sherlock's gravestone. ' _The best and wisest man_.'

At least John has told him that, once, even if much of what he should say to Sherlock remains locked in his head. Sherlock has always been the better man of the two of them, and that moment in the morgue, John had hated him for it.

Maybe that's why he is wielding Eurus as a weapon against himself because he fears that there is nothing about him that can be fixed. Only punished. If that's the only good thing to come out of this visit, his own awareness that he's faced her twisted brand of justice, so be it. Whatever Eurus may drag into the light, it will remain between the two of them at least until tomorrow, which is when John gets to decide what and how he explains to Sherlock about their conversations. His terms. _Their_ terms, not Eurus'. But he knows there is a time-limit. He won't be able to dodge it, because when Sherlock visits Eurus next, she will be able to tell him anything and everything.

The clock is ticking between him and Sherlock. _No more obfuscation._

He marches back into the underground level, fingers clenched into fists. He launches back into the story before Eurus gets so much as half a deduction in about his state of mind.  
  


\-----------?-----------¿-----------?-----------  
  


An hour after Sherlock had left him alone in the guest bedroom, a distracted John scouted out what he could of the rest of the house; some doors were locked. There was a separate annexe to which he decided not to enter yet, having spotted through the windows that there were three people there engrossed in conversation and drinking wine. It would have been awkward to gate-crash what looked like a relaxed evening between friends: two women and a man. John watched them through a corridor window for a while; the distance between the buildings was such that he didn't arouse suspicion or attention standing there. Of course, none of the faces matched the photo of Lucy Cushing that her father had provided to them.

What did Sherlock want him to do? Talk to the other guests, obviously, but wouldn't he want to do it himself, since he could always spot things John didn't and provoke people into revealing even more by reacting to his rug-pulling abrasiveness.

John also wasn't at his most focused, because he couldn't help worrying about what Sherlock was doing with Mandrake. The protectiveness he'd felt for Sherlock from the very first days of their acquaintance had been moulded and refined by the years that had gone by, developing into a comfortable, reassuring connection John found fulfilling and Sherlock endured with seemingly little hardship.

Then, he died. Or, more accurately, he abandoned John for two years.  
  


\-----------?-----------¿-----------?-----------  
  


"Oh, you really do resent him leaving you behind. That's interesting. You see yourself as his great protector, yet you couldn't see what should have been blatantly obvious: that he wasn't dead?"  Eurus smirks, pulling John out of his story. "You really couldn't read it from Mycroft's or our parents' behaviour?"

It still stings, all of it. John only barely manages to control his expression, not wanting her to witness his reaction.  She's right, of course. "Mycroft is a very good liar, and your parents didn't attend the funeral."

Eurus scoffs. "Didn't attend the funeral of their darling youngest? _Obvious_."

"Not to me it wasn't," John tells her. "There was this couple, when I was working as a GP and when you––" _pretended to be my therapist_ "––were in London, too. Their daughter killed herself after a long struggle with bipolar disorder. They didn't go to the funeral they arranged for her, either. The mother, she was too angry still, and the father suffered a heart attack."

If Sherlock had _really_ met his end during those two years absent, and John had learned it after the fact, it would have been even worse than the initial shock, because he hadn't been there. He hadn't been there, at the end of days, to console Sherlock, to be the one to be at his side. After the initial shock had faded, John had realised that the worst part would have been knowing that Sherlock could have died somewhere far away — alone and frightened and in pain — and not the fact that Sherlock had lied to him because he hadn't seen any better options to keep everyone safe and to defeat Moriarty.

It still feels unreal, sometimes, when Sherlock walks into the same room. It clenches an invisible fist of nearly uncontrollable emotion sometimes, when he's suddenly there, peering over John's shoulder at what he's reading, or he's by the kitchen table with his microscope when John comes home. It's sometimes so jarring to be reminded that his presence is not the product of John's imagination.

To know that Sherlock would grant him that wish at his graveside, the one last miracle he'd asked, still feels like a sucker punch of the best sort.

He had grieved for Sherlock like a widow. Even his courtship of Mary had been defined by Sherlock's absence and then his presence. After Mary, he's still trying to find his footing, and Sherlock has been instrumental in the progress he's made so far, but it's still so hard. His patience isn't what it used to, regret and shame make him still want to curl up into a bottle on a regular basis, and worst of all, the residual apathy alternating with anger is hindering his enjoyment of the environment they've always been at their best, Sherlock and him: the Work. Sometimes he thinks he should be thinking more about Rosie, that maybe he should quit the Work because of the inherent dangers of it, but it's an instrumental part of who he has become, almost as integral as to Sherlock's very being, and he'd be fooling himself if he tried to live in safety as a GP raising a daughter. He'd tried normality once, with Mary, and the end result had been that he still found himself in the middle of a warzone when trouble found him anyway.

His worry for Sherlock nowadays resembles the constant undercurrent of fear that Rosie makes him feel. It's a fear of loss of what is vital to his own survival. Seeing Sherlock every morning makes him so happy it hurts, and there's a sense of belonging there that he'd never felt with Mary. He's still reluctant to explore the possible definitions of such a connection, but what do they matter anyway? It is what it is.

He clears his throat and resumes the story.

 

\-----------?-----------¿-----------?-----------  
  


"Stop staring at me as though an imposter has replaced me," Sherlock growled at him quietly half an hour later. John had trailed into the dining room after Alex ten minutes later than everyone else. John had nearly risen from his seat in relief and hidden his jumpiness in offering Sherlock the seat next to him, eliciting a suspicious frown.

Admittedly he _had_ been staring at Sherlock, looking for signs of distress behind his usual, regal, aloof composure; trying to find out if something untoward had happened during whatever he and Alex had been doing or discussing.

It was a relief when food dwas served. Under the guise of focusing on eating, John could survey their company — Alex's friends, including the ones John had seen enjoying pre-dinner drinks. Sherlock had, undoubtedly, already done his initial deductions, and was now discussing the neurochemistry of memory with Alex, throwing around such complex terms that John felt that his medical training fell well short of understanding the gist of the conversation.

There were seven of them at the table. Minako, in a white cocktail dress, whose silence was not of those that made others uncomfortable. Alex, of course, now clad in black jeans and a T-shirt that looked tattered but was undoubtedly designed to do so. Then Sherlock, sitting across the table from him. John made a note that he hadn't declined a glass of red wine — he wasn't going to drink it, of course, he rarely did, so its purpose probably to add verisimilitude. John had no such qualms about consuming his own – it was just the sort of deep, tannic red he preferred. Likely expensive, though he knew little about wine.

He and the three guests he'd spotted at the annexe had introduced themselves while waiting for the rest of the dinner party. There was a Welsh artist couple, Verona Lou and Georg, whose names John doubted were the ones given at birth. Georg appeared harmless, always smiling, mostly staying in the background, constantly in some sort of physical contact with Verona Lou, which the woman seemed so accustomed to that she appeared not even to notice. He was dressed in a striped, slightly oversized suit with a T-shirt underneath. Glasses, the general demeanour of an academic, but he'd been introduced to John as a painter.

Verona Lou was in constant motion. A tall, stocky woman in a flowing linen dress and a colourful scarf keeping her long hair off her face, she had already subjected John to a series of questions. They knew who Sherlock was (who didn't these days?) after his suicide and then redemption had been in the newspapers. Despite her cheery and animated disposition, her face was wrinkled beyond her years, and there was something bordering on frantic about her vivacious behaviour. Verona Lou asked the two of them questions, yes, but not the ones John had been expecting. Not once did she tried to find out why he and Sherlock were here. Could it be that such a constant flux of people spent time here that it was pointless trying to see a purpose in it? Were these people groupies of the Great Mandrake, desiring to bask in his favour, wanting to borrow his fame and fortune for their own needs?

Maybe the third guest could shed some light on that. She was in her mid-twenties as far as John could tell, a stark contrast to the well-above fifty years Verona Lou and Georg appeared to be. She couldn't be their daughter, John reasoned; the interactions between the three of them were not warm or close but not hinting at animosity, either. Simply temporary housemates? _Ellie_ , she had shyly told John her name when he'd asked, not volunteering any further information. She appeared timid, lost in thought during the meal. John had kept himself from asking what her connection to Alex was, even though he probably should have; after all, Sherlock had asked as much of him. John found a solitary young woman in the house of a male celebrity worrying to some extent, given the unknown fate of Lucy Cushing.

"So, working on anything good, then?" Verona Lou asked Sherlock over the appetiser, leaning forward to peer unashamedly in his face.

"I'm afraid work has been slow, lately. Good for society, worse for our endeavours."

When Sherlock lied, he did it skillfully and effortlessly, and without excessive detail. That's what he'd tried to school John on, too: _only lies have details_. Work hadn't been slow: Sherlock's email had been filled to the brim before they'd left. He had become pickier than ever about the cases he accepted, though.

John still wondered how interesting a case Sherlock really considered Lucy's disappearance, as opposed to the skills of the suspect. He feared that the whole thing might well get derailed because of it; could Sherlock even be disinclined to move forward with the case if Alex proved to be useful to him?

John decided that the best thing would be to crack the case wide open and go home.

"So, do you stay here even when Alex isn't around?" John asked the older pair of guests at the end of the table, shoving a forkful of salad into his mouth.

"This place is so inspiring!" Verona Lou announced, "And Alex is kind enough to let us borrow it as we please. His schedules are so random these days; he should be home more. I'm sure his art also requires a bit of downtime so that new ideas might come forth."

Alex smiled. "Thankfully, stage work is not a new pastime for humankind. I have the writings of all the magicians and mentalists and mesmerists to fall back on if my own ideas fall short."

"Have there been a lot of guests lately?" John continued, aware that he was beating around the bush and possibly skirting the edge of sounding a bit too curious for a man attempting to make small talk.

To his surprise, Ellie, who had mostly just been pushing his food around on her plate, answered. "Lucy was here."

Verona Lou clapped her hands together. "Oh, right, of course! Bless her; she should have stayed."

Sherlock perked up, and John's palms were practically sweating after hearing the name.

"Lucy?" Sherlock asked, instilling just enough curiosity into his voice to prompt an answer, yet not enough to alert anyone to the fact that he really cared.

Alex shrugged. "She was a law student interested in family law. Information obtained with hypnosis is sometimes used as evidence in abuse cases where the victims have reached adulthood before seeking restitution. For my PhD project, I looked into such issues, and she found an associated paper I published and contacted me."

John wondered why a scientific collaboration would have required for her to stay at Alex's house. "I thought you didn't work with those sorts of patients?"

Alex's expression turned dismissive. "I don't."

"Her research project is concluded, then?" Sherlock asked politely.

That specific tone always made John stifle a laugh because he only used it during cases. It was the fakest thing Sherlock ever did, and in stark contrast to his hatred of what he called a pointless social convention.

"I don't know," Alex admitted. "She left because of a family emergency."

"She had to leave very suddenly," Ellie confirmed.

Alex nodded and offered everyone a second pouring of wine.

John and Sherlock exchanged looks across the table. Sherlock's expression seemed to be warning him off from continuing the conversation.

At least they'd made some progress — Lucy had been here, and she had 'left abruptly'.

 _Bullshit_ , John thought. _There was no family emergency_.

The conversation then turned back to Sherlock's work. "It seems," Georg said, correcting the position of his glasses, "That what you do might well be described as a form of mentalism, too, Mister Holmes."

Alex was watching Sherlock, swirling his chardonnay in the glass. "Very true. After all, the mainstream definition of mentalism _is_ an individual appearing to demonstrate highly developed mental or intuitive abilities."

"I dislike the term intuition," Sherlock said, dabbing his mouth with a napkin. "It reeks of letting emotion and wishful thinking cloud one's mind."

John had half a mind to throw him a sarcastic look because wasn't that exactly what was going on? Sherlock, neglecting the work, side-lining the actual case here because of his other motivations? Motivations which were highly emotionally charged?

"On the other hand, our brains connect dots we're not even aware of. That's what's behind a solution appearing during the night and occurring to a person in the morning. Premonitions, déjà vu, both could just be a form of subconscious thinking," Alex mused.

"I was under the impression that the medical establishment had decided déjà vu is a malfunction of brain blood circulation," Sherlock said.

"I've never claimed that what I do is related to magic, yet that's what people see when they come to the shows. To them, the very calculated and conscious processes in my head when I perform seem beyond their abilities. It's all relative, wouldn't you think?"

"Most people are idiots failing to make use of even rudimentary cognitive skills," Sherlock countered, and the edge of John's mouth curled up. "What interests me," Sherlock continued, "Is not how but _why_ someone would make a trade out of smoke and mirrors? When I use my skills, it's to serve a purpose: to solve a crime, to assist someone, to keep myself from being bored. I assume you have always enjoyed what you do, but you had a lucrative, promising career in neuroscience when you decided to embrace this side of your knowledge fully. Why?"

"Why do any of us do what we do? We enjoy it. It's addictive."

 _But what part of it?_ John wondered. _Having so much power over other people?_

Georg leaned back in his seat, looking thoughtful. "He raises a good question, though," he shifted his line of sight to Sherlock to signal who he was referring to, "Many professional performers are shy at their core. Where does the desire to put themselves under the limelight come from? Are stage magicians well-adjusted, confident people in real life, or is it simply an easy yet fraudulent shortcut to dealing with others?"

"With friends like this," Alex joked, not offended at all. "I never felt impressive. I never knew how to behave at parties, how to make friends, until I started doing magic. Even when I felt like a performing monkey, I was making people happy and surprised, and that was way better than being the wallflower who went home at nine bloody p.m. from every party."

"By standing out, you blended in," Georg mused.

John thought of what Sebastian Wilkes had said about Sherlock, ' _he had a trick he used to do, put the wind up everybody. We hated him'_. It seems that using _his_ mentalist abilities, if that truly was a word that could describe them, had not produced the same results for Sherlock as they had for Alex. John doubted it had even been Sherlock's intent. Mostly, Sherlock seemed to fall back on his meanest deductions when he's trying to keep others at bay instead of wanting to get along with them. After all, Wilkes had seemed very incredulous at the thought that Sherlock Holmes could possibly have found himself a _friend_.

John looked at Sherlock across the table, a sudden surge or protectiveness taking over.

"I wasn't much of a mentalist back then. Mostly it was just a bit of hypnosis and classic sleight of hand," Alex belittled himself.

"You speak like a thespian when on stage; makes me laugh," Verona Lou say, piling her plate on top of Ellie's and passing them to Minako who carefully arranged all the cutlery to sit on the top plate.

"I've noticed you enjoy revealing how your stage acts work, but you always omit the key details. You enjoy dangling the truth in front of them, but at the same time making sure they know they can never quite reach it. It's all carefully scripted," Sherlock noted. "They want to think they're on to you and enjoy being proven wrong. And you, of course, love doing that to them, being that pied piper."

"Spot on, I think," Alex says, his tone congratulatory but his smile not quite reaching his eyes.

"So it's all manipulation? Making people do things they wouldn't, tricking them into thinking they don't remember something. How can you expect someone to consent to that, when they don't even know what they'll be consenting for?" John asked, aware that his tone had slipped into a slight provocation.

"What _is_ consent?" Alex asked. "All those who I recruit for the specials have applied to my shows. They just don't know they were chosen until the whole thing is done. They know what I do, they've signed release waivers. They know they have to take a risk to gain a potentially life-changing experience."

"The way you explain your art never quite reveals the whole truth. How does that fit with the notion of consent?"

"A surgeon will never share with a patient all the details of the operation. A tour guide won't list every building your bus passes. We put our trust in others all the time, John, and expect them to deliver us through an experience safely. You trust him," Alex nods towards Sherlock. "You let him bring you into this house, though it's obvious you are sceptical of who I am and what I do."

John put his fork down on his plate. "He didn't consent to what you did in the car. Not really," he argued, eyes fixed on Alex.

"John?" Sherlock's brows had furrowed into a V.

"He hypnotised you. Put you under. Quick induction."

"Oh," Sherlock said in a light tone. "Perhaps I was wrong, then, about the effectiveness of that technique."

John gaped. He expected Sherlock to get angry, at least. Maybe he thought it would harm their case if he got riled up at Alex, but his nonchalance seemed genuine. _After Eurus, how can he just accept…?_

John opened his mouth, but Sherlock gave him a warning look.

Alex didn't seem perturbed. He must've had to fend off such concerns numerous times. "We do have a very strict consent system, and we very carefully make sure that the participants' memories are intact after the show, except for parts which might reveal some important secrets of my trade. We do consider these things very carefully," he explained. "Sometimes, I even get requests from the police to help, but I've decided to say no. I don't think it would be moral. There is a recognised risk that hypnosis can easily introduce things that didn't happen or turn inconsequential details into something else. I’m a showman, even though I'm also a psychologist, but I'm not a forensic one, and that's my reasoning for staying out of police business. I'm a guy on TV; I can't solve people's problems. I do get a lot of messages asking for help finding lost things, forgetting a bad breakup, that sort of thing. I tell them to take the initiative they must have since they used it to contact me and find a trained, skilled therapist."

To John, this sounded both deluded and false. Sherlock had asked for Alex's help, and he'd accepted to advance his career. How was that more ethical than declining the requests of others in need, telling them to find a therapist elsewhere?

" _Most powerful is he who has himself in his own power_ ," Georg quoted from somewhere. "I assume you seek to regift that power to everyone who participates in your art?" He beamed at Alex, who nodded.

John felt sick to his stomach. _Bloody sycophants._

" _Tis in my memory lock'd; And you yourself shall keep the key of it_ ," Sherlock counter-quoted.

Verona asked, "Who said that?"

"Shakespeare; it's from Hamlet's Act One, Scene three," Sherlock replied. "Memory manipulation _is_ possible through hypnosis. That has been well established, but the efficacy of it varies between individuals. There was a study done in Stanford in 2002, which proved that the brains of those susceptible work differently than the brains of those resistant to hypnosis."

Alex downed the rest of his wine. "That's right. Hypnosis works through modulating the function of pathways in the brain regulating focused attention. Those who can be hypnotised seem to have much more connectivity between two specific networks in the brain: the executive control network responsible for making decisions, and the so-called salience network that decides what stimuli to favour over others at a certain moment. It's a neural trait, more about cognitive style, if such an expression is allowed, than a personality variable. Those can change, whereas some functionalities of neural networks might well be genetic."

"So, how can you tell which audience members to pick if you can't analyse their… um… circuits first?" John asked.

"I guess that brings us to intuition," Alex said, with a sideways glance to Sherlock who had just received his main course and is prodding at some carrots with a fork. He had eaten only some of the starter, yet John suspects it will be quite enough for him for tonight. John has always hated his rule of not eating during cases. It reeks of a rather pathological relationship with his body, and it's just the sort of typical Sherlockian stubbornness that contradicts his otherwise scientifically minded worldview.

Dessert is the exception, of course. Sugary snacks and sweets are what John uses to keep him alive during longer cases. John had always considered it a bit endearing really, Sherlock having such an incurable sweet tooth. He never says no to cake, yet he torments his brother for a similar penchant. It was a cheap shot to throw back at a sibling who claimed he was the cleverer of the two.

"People who are good at visualising things, who have a good memory — especially if they remember things early in their childhood, people prone to dissociation and capable of putting themselves in a trance-like state when concentrating, people who have had imaginary friends and whose parents have encouraged imaginative play, are some descriptions of the traits suggested by research to be associated with high susceptibility for hypnosis," Ellie said, completely surprising John. Her tone was wondrous, and he watched Alex raptly as she spoke.

"Are you a student, too, then, Ellie?"

"No." And that was that.

 _What is she, then?_ John wondered. _A disciple?_

"I would have thought high intelligence would be detrimental to being hypnotised," John suggested.

The carrots on their plates turned out to be flavoured with tarragon. No wonder Sherlock had been so suspicious of them. John knew he hated the stuff: _'Sileage, John. Only fit for cattle.'_

"Needing to be a dumb stooge is a common misconception," Alex explained. "Smart people often have good visualising skills. If you don't mind me saying so, Sherlock, you're a good example. That's what you do at crime scenes, isn't it — you imagine how things ended up going the way they did? I have to say you're among the easiest I've encountered to put under."

John wondered how Alex could make that distinction from just one quick induction; perhaps there were subtle differences in how subjects followed Alex's lead. John thought of the Mind Palace, which to Sherlock much more than just a memory technique: that cerebral manor clearly was a place into which he could escape unpleasant situations. He seemed completely lost to the world when in it. _Self-induced trance state, indeed._ And, when on cases and trying to work something out, he often acted as though there were people and objects present which only existed in his imagination. It was just as Ellie had said: _good visualising skills_. No, scratch that — Sherlock had _exceptional_ visualising skills.

The events in the car came back to John in a flash, bringing about a fresh sense of irritation. How could Sherlock be willing to subject himself to all this, after what they had experienced at Sherrinford? After witnessing what Eurus had done to people?

"Where did you study hypnosis?" The question comes from Sherlock.

"I trained under Graham Wagstaff at Liverpool, where I'm still a visiting lecturer. You could easily call him the Grand Old Man of British clinical hypnosis. Regrettably, we parted ways after a disagreement."

"He wrote a paper questioning if uncoerced rape would be possible under hypnosis, did he not?" Sherlock asked, and John spotted him watching Alex intently, probably fishing for a reaction.

There was none. "I'm afraid I haven't read his more recent work, not after I left Liverpool. He was against stage hypnosis. It was either stay and accept that ethos or do what I really wanted to do and leave his circle."

The conversation then shifted to things unrelated to Alex.

Dessert turned out to be fruit, and Sherlock's slight disappointment amused John. At least it was accompanied by a nice white vintage port.

As the rest of the group dispersed, Alex invited Sherlock and John to take their refilled glasses into the library. It was a large room in the middle of the house, perhaps the only one without natural light. A smallish, ornately carved wooden table lay in the middle, surrounded by three wingback chairs.

Sherlock slipped into one of them after doing a walk around the cosy space. John noticed his cheeks were slightly flushed and realised he'd actually finished both the red wine and half the second helping of port.

John made a deduction: something was wrong. Sherlock never drank unless there was nothing else available to calm his nerves. _Baskerville_.

John took over the chair opposite him. He watched as Sherlock placed a finger on a deck of cards on the edge of the table, and with a swift movement in a half-circle, fanned them out symmetrically with his hand, index finger slightly hooked and the rest of his fingers splayed out. Then he gently picked up the last card in the row and spun it on the tip of his index finger. Last, he collected the cards back into his hand as quickly as he'd spread them out, finishing with shooting the cards from one hand to another held beneath it.

John watched, mesmerised. "Cards tricks are stupid, eh?" he teased, reminding Sherlock of his earlier dismissals.

Alex had walked in just in time to see what John had just witnessed. "Nice spring flourish technique."

Sherlock pushed aside the deck and downed the last of what was in his glass. "I'm out of practice. Did some gambling at Cambridge when Mycroft kept cutting me off my trust fund money."

John found this unsurprising and could wager a good guess what had provoked such a reaction from the older Holmes. Sherlock certainly didn't lack vices, and his keen eye and intelligence and mathematical prowess would surely be enough to win a few card hands to finance his… other habits.

Still picking up on a sudden unease emanating from Sherlock, John hoped Alex would leave them be so that he could try to get to what was bothering him. He was in luck since apparently, the man had only followed them to inform them of breakfast time. Alex told them he had some work to do and apologised for not being able to keep them company.

Once his footsteps stopped echoing down the hardwood floor of the corridor outside the library, Sherlock launched himself up from his chair, curled his fingers around the doorframe and leaned his torso forward to survey the corridor in both directions. Once satisfied it was empty, he returned inside but remained standing, the fingers of his right hand dancing nervously on his thigh, his gaze directed slightly upwards as though trying to remember something. Whatever it was, it seemed to elude him, because soon he twirled around to lean forward and nail John with his gaze.

"What have you got so far?" he demanded.

 

\-----------?-----------¿-----------?-----------  


John is forced to pause his story when the door opens, and a message sealed in an envelope is delivered to him by a security guard. The envelope also contains an empty piece of paper and a pencil.

 _'Sherlock has attempted to inform you by email that your daughter has taken her first steps today. Any reply you'd like to pass on will be taken care of; you may write it down by hand._ MH'

John's initial reaction is to laugh: Mycroft Holmes does not care about the developmental milestones of children so Sherlock must've sent quite the email, demanding that it be forwarded. Internet access to Sherrinford is highly regulated, and John is not awarded the courtesy of access to it. _Hence the pencil trick._

"You dropped something," Eurus points out, standing near the glass, arms crossed, clearly indignant that John had interrupted his story.

John looks down and sees a printed black and white image on the floor. He picks it up; it's a somewhat grainy CCTV image of Sherlock kneeling on the floor in the sitting room at 221B, arms extended towards Rosie who is standing in the middle of the Persian carpet looking wobbly but clearly on her feet.

John's breath hitches.

He's missing this.

He has already missed so much of Rosie's development when he was trying to drown himself in cheap whisky. An overwhelming pang of guilt hits and he lets himself hate Eurus for a moment for what she almost did to all of them. Even if she had been understood, cherished, comforted in some odd way that she would have needed — even if she had never begun to hate his brother — would she still have learned to understand any of this?

John squares his shoulders, reminding himself that this is what he's here for: to protect his family. To make sure Rosie doesn't have to like under the shadow of the woman whose eyes are fixed on John right now, to make sure Sherlock may escape her shadow.

Mycroft pretends to scoff at such sentiment, but John had seen into his heart in this very place when the man unbuttoned his shirt and offered his life so that Sherlock could keep John alive. Mycroft Holmes may have made some terrible mistakes, but he does have enough sentiment in him to be quite a decent person. And he loves his baby brother fiercely and endlessly. Sherlock has been treated so badly by those around him and yet, over and over again, the man exposes himself to more pain and more heartbreak. His loyalty borders on suicidal.

Eurus Mycroft is afraid of, with good reason.

Sherlock, on the other hand, fears for her future.

John stares at the photograph and can't help but remember the day Rosie was born. Mary had been so convinced that the labour would take ages since it was her first that they had delayed leaving for the hospital for too long. And, there had been a case, so she had gritted her teeth through most of her contractions at Baker Street. In the end, Rosie had been delivered by John on the backseat of their car while Sherlock hovered right behind him, a dark-coated ghost shielding them from the wind as John was forced to leave the back door open to give him some space to move around on the back seat.

Eventually, they parked in front of the maternity entrance of the hospital. To make it easier for Mary to be assisted out, John had cut her daughter's cord there in the backseat with a pair of nail clippers from Mary's purse, disinfected with a lighter Sherlock had dug out of his pocket and tied with a piece of thread Sherlock had pulled out of his scarf. So that he could help Mary out of the care, John had given the baby to a wide-eyed, pale Sherlock. He had tried to protest, but a simple command from John to _look after her_ had done the trick. Sherlock had frowned, extended his shaky hands and held John's daughter, bundled up between his shirt and his coat. Rosie, who had only moments before been wailing, was absolutely silent as the three of them, escorted by two midwives, made their way into the warm lights of the entrance hall.

Sherlock had accepted and protected his daughter from the moment she was born, as though it was the most natural thing in the world. Sherlock's wedding vow still stands — it always did.

John feels a sudden, overwhelming wave of protectiveness wash over himself. He doesn't want Eurus to see this grainy CCTV image, doesn't want to give her any more ammunition to hurt him, to hurt Sherlock, to hurt Rosie.

He knows he can't start scribbling some emotional note to Sherlock right now. He can't _get_ emotional right now, because Eurus will get the upper hand if he shows his soft underbelly.

Today, he has to be the one who protects what he loves. _Soldiers today_.

"What is it?" Eurus asks, craning her neck so she could see the image John is holding.

He shoves the contents of the envelope into his trouser pocket. "None of your business."

He then sits down, clears his throat and continues his story.

 

 


	8. Which One Is Pain?

**If I were a weapon**  
**you said I'd be a gun**  
**lethal at close range I guess**  
**with silencer and stun**  
  
**but I feel more like a needle**  
**always pulling on the thread**  
**always making the same point again**  
**and wondering if you heard what I just said**  
— _Suzanne Vega_

 

"What have you got so far?" Sherlock demanded, towering over John after peering into the hallway to make sure no one was within earshot.

"Not much," John said defensively, and Sherlock withdrew slightly from his personal space. "The rest of the guests are staying at an annex building, like Alex said. Didn't talk to them apart from the dinner."

Sherlock must have managed to deduce more out of them during the meal than John had, but he offered what little he had gleaned from between the lines. "I can't work out why Ellie's here. She said she's not a student and I don't think she's a relative. She also doesn't act as though there's any connection between her and the couple."

Sherlock dug out his mobile from his pocket. "I asked a favour from Lestrade to look into Alex's criminal record."

"Anything particular you're expecting to find?"

"All this talk about not addressing sexual trauma in therapy work reeks of over-compensation."

John found it easy to agree, although it might just be because the suspected victim here was a young woman. _If_ she was a victim. They had to keep in mind that there was no body. "They didn't hide the fact that she'd been here. The couple even said the police had interviewed them and Alex."

"The police have already talked to all who were at the house that weekend — Lucy's father mentioned as much in his message. They also had a look around the house. No belongings of hers have been found, and since the father has no tangible evidence that she was here on the day of her last communique, the police had very little to work with. Mandrake _would_ be smart enough for a 'hiding in plain sight' ruse, of appearing to be open and honest. So why hasn't he reached out to her father, then, if he's trying to be so helpful and charitable?"

Sherlock paced the length of the carpet, fingertips steepled onto his upper lip. "What _was_ she to Alex? Disciple, abuse victim, girlfriend, employee? Once we established her role, various motives for making her disappear should come forth. I hope it's not a romantic affair. That would be tedious."

John wondered out loud, "An affair? But why would that matter so much that she had to disappear? Neither of the parties are married, so it wouldn't be much of a scandal. She is of age, so that isn't an angle, either. Perhaps there was an affair, which she was trying to use to frame a story of sexual misconduct. Or maybe she found out something about him he doesn't want to get to the press. Extortion?"

Sherlock sniffed. "She was a law student. I doubt she would have taken such a risk. Accusations of sexual misconduct seem more likely; a law student would be likelier to want to press the issue through official channels. It's all conjecture, of course, and could still be a false accusation towards a celebrity. It happens, but police records do show that false rape accusations are relatively rare. Lucy would have risked her professional reputation with such a fabrication. No, whatever happened here… happened."

To stopped, mid-carpet to fix his gaze on John. "Talk to Ellie tomorrow. See if you can find out her business with him. According to the tabloids, there can be up to ten people staying here at a time; it's likely that some of them have been sent away by Alex prior to our arrival. The police have the list of those who were present during the time they were here; if this doesn't crack wide open during the weekend we might need to talk to the detective in charge."

"Right," John said. He was relieved to be given instructions instead of wandering around aimlessly like he had done earlier that night. "The side doors aren't locked, and there's no perimeter fence apart from the front yard. If someone wanted to leave, they could easily do so. Should I have a look around the premises?"

"Couldn't hurt." Sherlock slumped back into the chair opposite and ran a palm down his face, his eyes closed. When he opened them again, John noticed they appeared bloodshot, blue shadows of insomnia colouring the skin underneath.

"You're doing that face tilt and frown thing again," Sherlock groused.

"What thing?"

"When you're worried." His tone was so dismissive that John decided to poke around the case some more instead of taking the bait and nagging about having enough rest. "Did you get anything out of Mandrake?"

"We didn't discuss anything related to the case," Sherlock dismissed with a flick of his hand. "Verona Lou has untreated rheumatoid arthritis. Judging by her lifestyle, she probably relies on alternate therapies," he then explained apropos of nothing. Then again, Sherlock's intuitive leaps did have all the requisite bus stops, the journey just happened to fast that nobody else could ever keep up.

"Just because she _looks_ like a hippie gone stale, that doesn't mean---" It isn't often that John contradicted Sherlock's deductions, only when he sounded this stereotypical.

"She reeks faintly of _Salvia divinorum_ ," Sherlock countered.

"Sage? Maybe she likes to cook."

Sherlock snorts. "Nobody cooks with _that_. Salvia _officinalis_ is the herb, whereas the _divinorum_ , also known as _seer's sage_ , is used as a hallucinogenic. Not very easy to come by but still legal in the UK. She hasn't used it very recently — wasn't exhibiting any common side effects over dinner, but the garment she wore topmost must have been in repeated contact with the smoke. There are other, much more potent and more easily obtainable hallucinogens favoured by those for whom the use is an end in itself. Seer's sage tends to be used by those to whom it has some sort of philosophical significance."

"Such as?"

"Wiccans. Other neo-pagans. There's also a researcher claiming that it could be used to treat cocaine addiction, but that's unproven. Rats seemed to prefer salvinorin, the active ingredient, to cocaine when offered both, but that doesn't necessarily apply to humans."

John snorted when an image of Sherlock smoking sage in lieu of cocaine hit his brain. Not that there was anything funny about such a thing, but with Sherlock one learned to laugh at the strangest and most morbid things. "You're not buying into the tabloids' 'cult of Mandrake' -theory, are you?"

"No. If that were the case, this house and the behaviour of its occupants would be very different. If anything, Mandrake doesn't seem very interested in his guests. He hasn't made any serious efforts to limit our exposure to them, and nothing points to their behaviour being influenced by someone. Ellie's clearly the unstable pawn, and Alex didn't clear her out of the house. I think we're looking for a single individual or a maximum of two individuals who know what happened, assuming anyone present even has something to do with whatever happened to Lucy."

John bit his tongue because he was tempted to point out that not even Sherlock and Mycroft had been able to tell half of Sherrinford's staff had been _influenced_ by someone. On the other hand, as clever as this magician bloke seemed, he was hardly Eurus Holmes.

Sherlock studied his face briefly, then flicked his wrist dismissively. "Oh, go on, then. Ask whatever is causing you to make that face again."

John shifts in his chair, sitting up straight. "You already know what I'd say, don't you?"

" _Obviously_. You want to know about the… session. With Alex."

 _Session_ sounded much more worrying than _conversation_. " How do you know you can trust this guy?"

 "Hypnotic suggestions don't need to entail saying things that are recalled out loud."

"But you don't control the process. He could just, you know, tell you to spill. how is he going to be able to instruct you, if he doesn't know what you're really trying to remember?"

Sherlock's gaze narrowed in sudden warning. "You don't need to worry, John."

"You think Mycroft's going to mop up the mess if you end up accidentally making Sherrinford public knowledge? Wouldn't take much, especially if we get on Alex's bad side. The genie would be out of the bottle and you can't shove it back in."

The genie had literally been out once, pretending to be John's therapist and trying to seduce him in a bloody commuter bus.

"You don't have to do this, you know — put yourself on the line," John pressed. "You've solved cases just from the lint on somebody's trousers, I'm sure you could crack this without, you know––"

"I hardly need to remind you that this is not the first time _our_ cases have required unorthodox methods."

 

\-----------?-----------¿-----------?-----------  
  


Eurus has been listening to John so far without making eye contact. At that last sentence, her head whips around to stare at him through the glass. " _Your_ cases? He actually thinks you do things _together_?"

It rankles, her thinking that he is somehow just a useless appendage, a tag-along. She hasn't understood his use of the word in the way Sherlock had meant it. Somehow, Sherlock's wording had made John feel as though what he actually meant was 'your case'. Because that's how it appeared, Sherlock being still preoccupied with Alex and Eurus and god knows what sort of a connection between the two, leaving the case to John — maybe not even caring about the outcome.

They had argued about it some more that night at bedtime; Sherlock had been dismissive: "You're assigning near-mythical properties to Alex' skills. You know _my_ methods, yet even you must have doubted me at least for a moment during the whole Richard Brook debacle, thinking that my career was something that could only have been the fictional tour-de-force of a creative mind."

John had never believed for Sherlock to be a fraud, but anyone could have been duped by the elaborate hoax Moriarty had cooked up. _Anyone_.

He decides to ignore Eurus's barb and carry on with the story.

 

  

\-----------?-----------¿-----------?-----------

   


Sherlock interrupted him by lifting up a finger in warning as he pulled open the covers in his bed, having changed into a dark blue pyjama.

"Hypnosis has been scientifically studied, and when it comes to reading people there's nothing magical about Alex's abilities. While I may not be very apt at deciphering people's emotions when they're expressed verbally or hidden behind other motives, I can and will read, for instance, what shifts in expressions point to. Our features are given to us as the means by which we betray our emotions, and they are faithful servants to that cause. Yours are easy because I've spent countless hours observing them.”

Sometimes John felt as though Sherlock could read his mind, answering questions he hadn't even voiced. It did feel supernatural. “Do you mean to say that you read my train of thoughts from my features?”

“Your features and especially your eyes. You must know this already."

"I don't think about it all that much, how you do it, how you… deduce, I mean." John left out the fact that he never tried because they both seemed to assume that he could never be up to the task.

"That is precisely the problem with most people. They just _think_ , never considering the process of it. How do you better yourself in something you refuse to be even aware of?"

John sighed.

"Do you think Lucy's dead?" He asked, wanting to get back on track.

"If she has taken her phone and wallet with her, wherever she is, then she may well be alive. If those are still here somewhere, then that would confirm foul play. Either they're with her, or they've been disposed of."

"I can't just go around asking about her or if someone's buried her stuff in the back garden, that would just be suspicious."

"That's why Ellie's your best bet. Her motive for residing here may well mirror Lucy's," Sherlock reasoned, killing the light on his bedside cabinet.

"Do you believe that she was here for a research project?" John asked, doing the same. The only light in the room was now the moon streaming in through the window.

Sherlock arranged his arms on top of his duvet and top sheet. "When taking into consideration that she's disappeared, it could have been that at first, but then turned personal."

His phone beeped in his pocket, and he whipped it out, the screen casting a cold, ghostly light on his features. "Lestrade says Alex has no priors. Juvenile records are sealed, of course, but sexual misconduct tends to leave at least a rumour trail, and Mandrake's been media fodder for a few years already."

John still couldn't decide whether to call the man _Alex_ or _Mandrake_. _Alex_ somehow felt… dangerously familiar.

"Savile covered his tracks well for decades," he pointed out.

"That was then. The press and the TV were a closed circle business, there was no social media and things could be kept quiet much more easily. Granted, even with all these modern dark marvels, Culverton Smith happened, but still."

  
\-----------?-----------¿-----------?-----------  
  


Eurus interrupts again. "Culverton Smith…." Her posture changes. "He seemed to have so much fun trying to fool Sherlock." Her voice has changed, dropping into an accent she had used when impersonating the man's daughter.

John had never seen her in that guise, only the real person when she'd shown up in the morgue to confront Sherlock and drive him over the edge. Not even during the Baskerville case had John seen him so completely in doubt about his faculties and reasoning, and it had felt as if the bottom had dropped from the universe. Instead of the man of the hour, the superhero who always saved the day, Sherlock was suddenly so… flawed. So human. And it frightened John to the point of panic because he needed someone like Sherlock to make sense of the world.

Eurus had been right in that he'd picked a female therapist because he was fed up with having the world explained to him by a man. What she'd got wrong was that he still missed having the world being explained to him by _one very particular man_ , with whom he had lost his connection. He had missed Sherlock completely, violently. And the guilt about that as he was supposed to grieve his _wife_ was utterly crushing. And since he had no outlet for it, no way to defuse it, he took it out on the only person who could have helped.

It has become a Pavlovian response: when the name of Culverton Smith is mentioned, John's mind is instantly transported back to the morgue, flooded with memories that make him loathe himself. Memories that made him ache to do something to fix everything.

He wonders if it's like that for Sherlock as well. At no point has he tried to confront John for what he'd done — instead, Sherlock had been the epitome of forgiveness and grace, acting as though it had been all part of his plan, what had happened.

It couldn't have been. Not even John had anticipated the ferocity of his own reaction, the depth of the vitriol that had led to those bruises and broken bones.

He doesn't want Sherlock's forgiveness because that forgiveness gives him no closure at all.

Is it ever going to be alright between them? Is John ever going to stop letting people down?

He can't erase those days, but he can make sure he is there for Sherlock, _now_.

He gives Eurus a steely look. "Not here to listen to you gloat. Best concentrate on the here and now, on this story." He clears his throat and resumes where he had left off.

 

 

\-----------?-----------¿-----------?-----------

   


In the soft shroud of the darkness, John plucked up the courage to ask about Sherlock's meeting with Alex.

"Are you alright? Did you remember something tonight?"

"More than I care to," Sherlock replied cryptically.

John was surprised. How far had they gone, and could hypnosis be that effective so soon? He didn't ask for any details, didn't want to press his friend into sharing anything before he was ready. Whatever haunted Sherlock that night, he probably needed to process it in solitude first.

"You're not upset about what happened in the car?" John asked, trying to keep his tone neutral.

"Alex asked me the same thing. I told him I see it as a marginal show of trust as opposed to what I am having to divulge to him during our… sessions."

 _It's not a show of trust, is it, if you're not making a choice? If you're being tricked?_ John wondered.

"If you want to talk, I'm here," he offered feebly, knowing that antagonising Sherlock about Mandrake would be a road to nowhere.

Sherlock's voice was muffled by his pillow. "We should call it a night. I need you sharp tomorrow."

 

 

\-----------?-----------¿-----------?-----------

   


Eurus is smiling to herself. "He must have remembered more about me. This quack was unlocking the door and he was remembering me!"  She has her arms crossed as though holding herself, almost rocking with satisfaction.

John wants nothing more than to wipe the smile off her face. Seeing her rejoicing in what has disturbed and distressed Sherlock for so long is just _wrong._ Perversely, he wishes he could show Sherlock this, show him a recording of her delighting at his discomfort.

_Would it be enough to stop his crazy crusade to somehow rehabilitate her?_

John doubts it. If Sherlock is still willing to be loyal to a man such as he— someone who had been physically violent to him and hurt him in so many ways, including forcing him to plan his wedding to another person, then Sherlock will not easily shift from his belief that Eurus is worth saving.

"You're making assumptions here. Wait, and listen."

 

 

\-----------?-----------¿-----------?-----------

 

John woke up sometime during the night, unsure what had made him stir. The moonlight shining through the large window against which his bed was positioned didn't seem bright enough to rouse him. At home, he'd often fallen asleep with the reading light on which was much brighter, and after Rosie's early months, little could ruin his sleep when he was awarded some.

He turned around under his duvet and squinted in the darkness at the other bed in the room, pushed against the wall next to the door by Sherlock. It was empty, and the duvet was gone, too. Sherlock did have a habit of sometimes dragging his to the sofa at home for reasons unknown, but he'd never vacated his bed in such a manner when they'd been staying at hotels or with someone.

John sat up, put his socks back on after running a hand through his sleep-mussed hair, and headed to the corridor, already regretting not grabbing his jacket before slipping out of the room.

It was quiet, apart from the whirring of an air-source heat pump in an alcove he walked by.

It took John ten minutes of wandering around the sleeping house to spot Sherlock through a door leading to what at first appeared to be a balcony, but which turned out to be a terrace cut into the rock face the hill on which the house was situated.

Sherlock stood by the heavy stone railing at the edge, duvet wrapped around himself looking like a mound of white with the head of a black mop on top.

John cleared his throat on approach — Sherlock had left the side door ajar so anyone joining him wouldn't make much noise coming in. He had learned that Sherlock could be as jumpy as he used to be in the first year after Afghanistan.

He knew why. Another thing they didn't discuss, although the knowledge that they should kept burning at John's edges whenever the issue was so much as skirted.

  
  
\-----------?-----------¿-----------?-----------  
  


Eurus gets up suddenly and approaches the glass wall. "You're talking about the scars, and how he got them while he was running around playing with Moriarty's network. I know about those. I saw them when he was moved from here to Musgrave.  The scars bother you. They didn't bother him. I should know. I used to stab him with pins to see how he reacted. Pain is such an odd sensation; I wanted to see how other people dealt with it. At first, he cried. But he learned not to. That was interesting."

John knows a lot of sordid details from that cursed childhood; Mycroft has made sure of it. Mary knew, too, since she had been spending almost an equal amount of time with Sherlock after he returned from God-knows-where he'd spent those two years. But, Mycroft had not divulged geographic detail, focusing instead of things he felt John needed to know about the consequences of those two years.

"He has been coping surprisingly well, _considering_ ," is what Mycroft had concluded their discussion at the Diogenes where John and Mary had been invited for lunch. He had been left with the impression that Mycroft expected it to be his duty to find out more, to coax out of Sherlock some truth of why he was exhibiting the same sorts of symptoms John was achingly familiar with from his own experience.

He didn't.

He let himself believe that Sherlock coping well meant flooding 221B with napkin Opera houses.

John is aware that his own selfish needs have inflicted a great deal of pain on Sherlock. He's never had any illusions as to his own role in Sherlock seeming so out of sorts during the time of  the wedding. Neither of them knew how to cope with the change, the elephant in the room. They're not 'friends', not 'colleagues', not 'partners', not 'lovers'. There is no definition to what Sherlock is to him, apart from the fact that there is no fucking room for anybody else than Sherlock and Rosie in his life, and it has taken him this long to accept that he doesn't even want there to be.

Yet, even now — after all that has happened — he doesn't know at all what Sherlock wants, what he needs to move past the ghosts of Musgrave Hall. So much of Sherlock is buried under layers of trauma, assumption, denial, expectation of disaster and a fucked-up, almost religious conviction that someone like Sherlock could turn off emotion when it suits him. Perhaps a part of him still clings to the notion that he is like Eurus, devoid of feeling. Nothing could be further from the truth, and for John she has been the final nail in that coffin. Sherlock likes to think he doesn't feel things, because doing so would expose him in ways that have led to nothing but pain. No, Eurus has no idea what Sherlock has been through and how he has tried to cope, because she has no concept of emotional pain beyond her own selfish needs.

It's a shock, though —hearing her admitting so plainly to physically abusing her brother when they were children.

Things have changed in the past two years. The Sherlock of five years ago, the self-acclaimed sociopath, would never have acted the way he has with Eurus. Even on the night itself, while John had been stuck down that wretched well, Sherlock had shown compassion toward the monster who is looking at him now through the glass wall of her prison. What might have been anger at having been manipulated for years has become something entirely different.

John knows what _he_ wants. Life as it is, right now, with Rosie and Sherlock and The Work. Maybe he's having a hard time accepting the uncertainty and danger inherent in that construction, because he's just a little bit exhausted by having his life turned upside down numerous times during the past five years. _Who wouldn't be?_

Still, whatever he has gone through, he's beginning to accept that for Sherlock, those five years may have been much worse.

He's not going to give Eurus the satisfaction of a reaction, but simply continues his story.  


 

\-----------?-----------¿-----------?-----------

 

The mound standing by on the terrace shifted when Sherlock turned to look at him. The thick, puffy duvet he had cocooned himself in made him look like a football mascot, a cloud of bedding on top of black stick legs.

John didn't ask if he couldn't sleep, the answer was obvious. It was annoying how Sherlock had ruined these social niceties, these reassuring verbal routines people found comfortable so completely from John.

Out there, the moonlight was surprisingly bright since no trees nearby blocked it out. John glanced down and spotted a burnt match and a cigarette butt right next to Sherlock's bare soles. His feet must've been freezing if he'd stood here for longer than a few minutes.

Sherlock spotted him looking down, and, judging by the shifts in his expression from serene to put-upon, he must've realised what John was looking at.

"I'm not going to say it," John chastised.

"It was a one-off. Nicked it off George and found some matches in the sitting room."

John wasn't really interested in the trade route of the vice. "It's always a one-off until the next time."

Sherlock closed his eyes momentarily in begrudging acknowledgement. "What are you doing up?"

"I thought you might be up to something case-related."

"I have no qualms about waking you up if I need your assistance."

John leaned over the railing. In the distance off to the opposite side of the driveway, he could see black water gleaming. A small lake or a pond? In some alternate reality, the scenery could have been romantic.

"How big are the premises again?" John asked, yawning and tucking his fingers between his sides and his arms.

"They used to be the hunting grounds of a nearby estate. 180 acres. The reservoir has been allowed to dry up; all that remains is that pond."

"Where do you think Lucy is?" John thought about Rosie, and how he would feel if he didn't know where she was. Adult or child, it didn't seem to matter; the alarm, the gut-wrenching fear of the worst and the pain was likely the same.

"Insufficient data."

"I knew you'd say that," John chuckled and without thinking, clapped his hand on Sherlock's shoulder.

He flinched; the reaction was barely hidden by the duvet. Sherlock stumbled backwards slightly before he carefully slid his form back to John's side with a mumbled apology.

This is what kept breaking John's heart — seeing the pain and alarm he had no idea how to address, witnessing the way in which Sherlock somehow thought he had no right to bother others with it.

"Sorry," John countered, "I should know better than to do that."

The pale, lithe fingers John could see jutting out from underneath the edge of the duvet curled into a fist. "No, it's–– I should be better acclimatised to such things by now."

 _How could he be, if he makes damned sure no one ever touches him?_ While Sherlock never respected the personal space of others, he rarely crossed the boundary into meaningful physical contact, broadcasting such a bristling, dispelling façade that people kept their distance.  
  


\-----------?-----------¿-----------?-----------

  
  
This is where John excuses himself from Eurus' company. This is where he lies, tells her that they went to bed, nothing more of it.

In reality, he had stood there beside the silent mound of Sherlock for some time, painfully aware that he should have offered some kind of consolation, but that his own awkward hesitation, his doubts, his incapability to just do such things without over-analysing their relationship was digging the trench between them deeper.

After they moved in together to Baker Street, John had spent a few years wondering if such things with Sherlock were only awkward in his own head, since Sherlock never hesitated to touch him — a hand on the shoulder while reading something on the computer screen in front of John, legs unceremoniously dropped onto John's lap on the sofa, arms pressed against one another as they stood in spaces that were not actually narrow enough to warrant it. Then, the fall, and Mary, and everything else happened, and behind Mary's jokes about the nature of his and Sherlock's relationship there was a dark undertone of accusation. That — coupled with the fact that Sherlock obviously had a bad case of untreated PTSD after his world tour — had made sure that John kept his distance after he returned from the dead.

He shouldn't have.

He had enjoyed their dancing lessons as much as Sherlock had, but still couldn't bring himself to dissect what he'd felt into its components. That was a task for another day, for a moment when they wouldn't be as shell-shocked as they still were that night at Mandrake's house.

Perhaps Mary's words about getting the hell on with things had been a veiled attempt to urge him to explore this _thing_ , this _entity_ between him and Sherlock after wasting so much time. But it doesn't work like that. All in all, John still acted on intuition, and he will continue to do so, because apart from a handful of quite disastrous moment, when it came to Sherlock, his intuition had served him pretty damned well. And what that intuition was telling him that night was: _tread carefully._

"I don't want you to be alone in those sessions," he had told Sherlock quietly.

"I can't spare you to be present. I need you to gather data."

"And I need you sharp, too. Even if Alex is being a professional, and whatever he's helping you with is working, it's got to be taking a lot out of you."

Sherlock scoffs dispassionately. "It's hardly worse than what has already happened."

"Which happened only a short while ago. Maybe you should have waited."

Sherlock straightened his back and looked straight at him, expression hard to read in the dim light. "This is the opportunity we were presented with. We don't get to pick when things happen, John, there's no refractory period to pain."

John had always suspected Sherlock had a big heart which he was skilled at hiding, but it seemed that for opening it even just a little, daring to voice the feeling he had worked his whole life to pretend didn't exist, life and fate and the uncaring universe had only rewarded him with more suffering.

"You must be freezing," John lamented.

"Helps with the headache. Should have taken an ibuprofen before the wine. The histamine release from red wine tends to have this unpleasant side-effect on me."

"I'll get you some paracetamol. Ibuprofen is still probably not a good idea, not until your kidney panel's back to normal."

The acute kidney failure Sherlock had managed to acquire during the Culverton Smith thing had resolved without dialysis, but his creatinine levels still lingered a bit above normal. Any medications messing with kidney function could still have been detrimental.

"Come on," John prompted, hand outstretched as he took a step back towards the house.

Sherlock frowned, reached out his hand to gently nudge it with his knuckle, then let his own drop as he trailed after John.  
  



	9. Because This Is Family

 

> **Dull magic is a collection of tricks: great magic should sting.  
>  ** _— Derren Brown_

 

John takes his Sunday breakfast to Eurus' visit chamber. There is no cutlery involved — it's just a couple of cucumber and cheddar sandwiches on a plate — but the guard still frowns. Mycroft must have established for John quite extensive privileges for this visit.

The elder Holmes had seemed mildly surprised when John had been shown into his office at Vauxhall Cross, probably since usually people came to him by delivery, not on their own initiative. He had also been openly surprised at John's request, and this was a man not easily caught off guard. At first, Mycroft assumed Sherlock had requested John's company. Then, he had voiced suspicion that John's may have harboured potentially violent intentions towards Eurus; he had even asked about them in an uncharacteristically blunt manner that had left little to the imagination: _'I can assure you that she will suffer more under a lifelong incarceration with little to occupy herself with than she would in the hands of an assassin.'_

Mycroft is well aware, of course, of what Sherlock continues to attempt with Eurus — a reconciliation. A connection. Forgiveness for the unforgivable, as though multiple murders are a thing that's within Sherlock's rights to forgive. "Are you trying to help Sherlock in that Quixotical task of his?"

"No. Yes. Maybe. I'm just trying to make sense of what happened, and to move on," John told him, and this seemed to satisfy the British Government.

"Will she be formally charged for Victor's death?" John had then asked.

"No. She was ruled mentally incompetent to stand trial, allowing indefinite incarceration at a forensic psychiatric unit."

 _Bullshit_. In John's opinion, she is perfectly competent to stand trial and make a mockery out of the judge with her intelligence. If she could fake being a psychotherapist, attending and manipulating her own trial would be child's play. Maybe that's what it all is to her if a part of her is still stuck in the days of childhood when it all started to go wrong. That's what Sherlock seems to think. Then again, Sherlock is no psychotherapist, either.

Maybe Eurus lives in their childhood because her adulthood is too frightening and bleak to accept.

"Is that what Sherrinford is supposed to be? A psychiatric unit?" John asked in a prickly tone. There seemed to be nothing rehabilitating about the place, and the people confined there seemed altogether beyond help. _They should have locked Moriarty up there, too, and thrown the key into the sea._

Mycroft had hummed dismissively. "How long would this hypothetical visit of yours be?"

"Overnight?" John had suggested without very extensive forethought. He had no idea how long it would take for him to make any sense of her — or _to_ her. "A weekend?"

Mycroft had not seemed seriously concerned that John's visit would upset or hurt her in any other way than a physical one. Maybe Mycroft does think she's beyond help. _Incorrigible. Permanently damaged_.

"And you wish to conceal it from Sherlock?" This detail seemed to interest the older Holmes.

"It's a very slim chance I'll succeed but yes, at least until I get back. It just seems like the right thing to do. I don't want to make him feel like I'm trying to undermine his efforts with her or trying to assist in them before I make up my mind about her."

"You don't support his decision to keep up a relationship with her, then." A statement, not a question.

"It's not my decision to make, and if he feels it's necessary, my disapproval won't do any of us any good."

"Indeed," Mycroft had admitted. He has never voiced an opinion one way or the other unless arranging Sherlock's weekly visits could be taken as acceptance and support. Mycroft seems to have taken a proverbial step back — maybe he's relieved that the cat is out of the bag. _It must be a massive weight off his shoulders now that Sherlock knows_.

"Very well. You are aware that every conversation Eurus has is recorded and available for persons of suitable clearance?"

"Will you be reviewing those tapes?"

"I have not decided." The older Holmes leaned back in his chair, looking focus, composed and calculating before speaking. "Very well. Arrangements will be made, as a sign of my gratitude."

 _For what?_ John wondered. For being there, at Sherrinford, the last time? For looking after Sherlock with Mary after his five-minute plane ride to exile when he detoxed from his OD at Baker Street? For something else? For failing, again and again, to be willing to see when Sherlock needed him.

_For failing, again and again, to be there for him._

"Now, if there's anything else?" Mycroft had stood behind his heavy desk, signalling that John should leave him to his duties.

A week later, an envelope with John's initials had been delivered to his workplace, containing details of transport to Northolt Airfield and a bio-chipped pass-card. John remembers seeing ones without a chip the last time he'd been in Sherrinford. They must've updated their systems after Eurus had turned the whole compound into her own nightmare version of a fairground funhouse.

Three weeks after John had walked into the Intelligence Headquarters reception area, asking for Mycroft Holmes, he has found himself at Sherrinford, now stealing occasional glances at Eurus Holmes who was primly eating an identical sandwich to his own.

"Has he had sex recently?" Eurus suddenly asks after swallowing, her tone almost disinterested but her eyes locked on John.

"Jesus. You are siblings, aren't you; nobody else flings those sorts of things at people without so much as a good morning first. The answer is _I don't know_ , and that you shouldn't be asking me."

"You _live_ together. Wouldn't you have noticed? How is it possible you can't see it? And if he has, wouldn't you have been present, too?"

John is so fucking tired of the countless incarnations of this conversation. "We're not together, and I haven't always lived with him. We don't talk about that stuff."

"He does. He broadcast your _sex holiday_ to the entire internet."

"He isn't good with social finesse. With discretion."

"He's smart enough to have learned what people don't like to discuss in public, don't you think?"

 _Fair enough_. John had wondered — once or twice or approximately thirty-nine times — why Sherlock had felt the need to hijack his blog like that. Writing about a purported sex holiday and arranging wedding photos and blogging about them meant that Sherlock been thinking about John's sex life and his holiday and his blogging and… him.

"Is he happy?" Eurus asks.

 _Yes, definitely a Holmes, with all these incomprehensible tangents._ This is a much safer topic, so he indulges. "Yeah. I think he is. He's still trying to wrap his head around this whole family thing, but yeah, he's happy."

"I'm his family."

 _No, you really are not,_ John thought, and some of that sentiment must have shown on his face. He kept forgetting that, unlike Sherlock, Eurus was probably just as good as Mycroft at reading such things.

"But why is he happy? How?" She demands as though someone has told her that some plan of hers has failed.

Perhaps it has. First, she had wanted Sherlock dead. Now, perhaps, she wants him less happy than she is, and that is not very happy at all.

 _No,_ John decides. _That's not it_. She doesn't seem dismayed at the concept, just baffled and curious.

"He has a place. He's got a life again," John explains, "Somewhere he belongs. A family," John adds pointedly.

"You can't get a family unless you acquire a partner and children. Or perhaps a pet. Or develop an amicable relationship with a partner's parents."

John smiles, probably almost smugly. It's semantics, in a way, what he's about to say, but something makes him want to inform her that despite everything she has done, Sherlock has done well for himself. "Yes, he has a family; your parents see Rosie a lot. Granted, it's an unconventional arrangement, but still."

"He already had a family; he doesn't need some patchwork version you're offering. He has parents, and he has Mycroft, and he has me."

"Sometimes, we choose our families. Sometimes, the right to belong has to be earned."

"As in _be a good girl, and you can stay_? I wasn't given that choice."

 _Jesus._ Isn't this what Sherlock has been trying to get at? Something honest? Maybe when she speaks with him, there's so much at stake that she hides behind games and takes on a role by which she thinks he might be fascinated. _What does she assume Sherlock would want to see? A veritable psychopath, a black angel to Sherlock's shades of grey? Or a little girl lost, needing to be saved?_

"You can't _buy_ that right with favours or by being what you think someone wants you to be. Stop playing games with him. Stop torturing him for your fun, if that's what you're doing. Sherlock provokes people to coax reactions out of them sometimes when it's useful, but there's never any real malice behind it. He pokes and pokes and stabs and stabs at people until they react, but he doesn't deal well with someone trying to manipulate him."

Maybe Sherlock has sensed that what Mycroft has been doing all these years has been precisely that — manipulation to make use of him and to conceal the truth from him. There had been an entire wing in Sherlock's Mind Palace, the key of which had been hidden by Mycroft.

Eurus licks cream cheese from her fingers. Even from where he's sitting, John can see that her nails have been bitten down. Gnawed at.

Sherlock and Eurus both like projecting an outward image of perfect control. Neither of them could probably be further from it.

"How did you make him like you?" Eurus asks, gaze roving up and down John. Appraising, observing.

"I didn't make him do anything. He likes you, or he doesn't."

"But why did he want to move in with you?"

John realises that all Eurus knows about his and Sherlock's early history must've come from Mycroft, who had been very confounded himself as to what had been going on when his married-to-his-work brother, one who tried to keep the entire world at bay by being lean, mean and brilliant, suddenly moved in with someone he'd only just met.

"We were introduced by a colleague of mine. Sherlock seemed to get along with him, which is rare, so maybe he was willing to give Mike's suggestion of a flatshare with me the benefit of the doubt. He'd been looking for a flatmate so that part wasn't Mike's idea. I was hoping to get out of the suburbs but couldn't afford anything more central on my own."

That doesn't answer Eurus' question. Not really. John isn't confident he has an answer for her. Why _do_ people like each other?

He and Sherlock had just…. clicked, somehow. Not what he would usually say about friends, but his and Sherlock's relationship had defined traditional definitions right from the beginning.

"Did Sherlock have a lot of friends when he was little?" John thinks he knows the answer already, but that's not the point.

"Mycroft had friends at school. Sherlock was at home with Mummy and me. Then the Trevor family moved into the village."

"Did you have friends? Did you play with Sherlock and Victor?" John thinks he knows the answer to this, too. Does she feel that Sherlock abandoned her when Victor came along? A child's anger and feelings of abandonment can be difficult for them to accept, especially if she saw Victor as much less worthy company than she was. John remembers going through something like that himself when his family moved after his parents' divorce, and he had a hard time finding friends at a new school. He had felt angry, disappointed and terribly worthless. He didn't understand what was wrong with him.

_Still, the average friendless child does not attempt murder to fix the problem._

Eurus runs her fingertips up her arm, tracing the veins. It's an odd gesture that makes her appear distracted, far away.

"I think he liked me because I didn't judge him," John continues, wanting not to lose her attention. "I didn't have any preconceptions about him because nobody had told me anything in advance. He seemed really interesting. I spent a lot of time wondering why he would want to spend time with me, but he did. On the first night, he took me along to a crime scene and then ditched me," John chuckles, "But he didn't do it because he was trying to be mean. He just gets distracted, a bit like a magpie who sees something shiny."

Eurus is looking at the wall as though there's something there she finds more interesting than the current conversation.

John needs to salvage the situation. Maybe he's poking at things she's not ready to face, especially not with a stranger who she must realise could well harbour malice towards her. This is something she needs to talk about with Sherlock, not him.

"Anyway," John clears his throat, "I think we need to continue the story."

Eurus finally shifts her gaze and locks it onto him. She looks not enthusiastic but not dismissive either. Apathetic is the word John would use.

He hopes he hasn't alienated her for good by talking about Victor.

 

\-----------?-----------¿-----------?-----------  
  


 

The next morning, John woke up to the sound of his mobile going off ten minutes before he'd set his alarm. Sherlock's bed was shoddily made, the man nowhere to be seen.

John scrambled to answer, burrowing deeper under his duvet as he shot out his arm to grab the source of the offending noise.

"Hello?"

"It's–– it's George Cushing. I've got her phone! Someone mailed it to me from bloody _Belfast_! I only opened the parcel today; it came in yesterday, I don't know anyone in Belfast, so I didn't think it was important––"

John scrambled to a sitting position. The air in the room felt chilly. "Hold on. Do you mean Lucy's phone?"

"Yes!" the man at the other end of the line was agitated. "It's hers, I recognise the protective cover, and her keys and her wallet are also in the box."

Sherlock would want to know all the details. "Mr Cushing, do you have a camera-phone?"

"Yes, I do, I have the same model as hers. I can't unlock hers; she didn't use her birthday or anything I could guess at as the PIN."

"Could you take a video of the box, the wallet, everything in it, the keys and the phone? As detailed as you can, then send it to us."

"The wrapping paper, too?"

"The box was wrapped?"

"Yeah, it's cardboard and a bit flimsy, so they had wrapped it with white paper."

"Film everything and send it to Sherlock. You have his number?"

After ending the call, John wasted no time in throwing on his clothes. He hurried to the dining room, where he found Sherlock reading the paper and stealing glances at the other people present for breakfast. Ellie was in attendance, and so were Alex and Minako, and the two of them were engrossed in leafing through what looked to be a set of blueprints. John wondered briefly if they were for a stage show or the next television special.

Sherlock looked up when he walked in, and John discreetly cocked his head towards the terrace, mouthing 'I need to talk to you'.

Sherlock rose from the sofa, but his usual flourish seemed slightly subdued. John wondered if he might be somewhat hungover or had slept badly. When it came to alcohol, Sherlock was a lightweight, and he'd had two glasses of wine the night before. He was not inclined to believe this was a sign of a new, more relaxed, more social fun-loving version of him; instead, John firmly filed the fact under _worrying_.

Once they were outside, Sherlock leaned his back against the door, presumably to keep a close eye on whoever might try to eavesdrop.

"Lucy's phone has been sent to Mr Cushing. From Belfast, of all places. And her keys and her wallet. Do you think it could've been her?"

"Mobile, maybe, if there was something there that she wanted her father to keep safe. Doing so would still signal that she was in some sort of trouble instead of trying to put her family at ease. The rest, unlikely. Why would she want to ditch her keys?"

"Kidnapping?"

"I assume there was no ransom note, and it's been weeks. Unlikely."

"Murder?"

"Are you going to list every possible offence that could have been inflicted on her?"

John bristled. "No. But that doesn't seem impossible, does it?"

"No one in their right mind would transport a body overseas to hide it."

"Well, lots of people who end up killing someone aren't exactly in their right mind, are they?"

"Disorganised offenders do not go to such lengths to conceal human remains. Usually, their dumpsites are close to the kill site, shoddily concealed if at all. And, transporting a live victim such a distance without the intention to demand ransom would require quite a background story to the whole thing. Human trafficking could be a possibility, but those responsible rarely care enough to send the belongings of their _goods_ to their relatives in a way that would alarm rather than put them at ease. Lucy would also have been a risky, high-profile candidate for human traffickers."

"Well, _who did it_ , then?" John demanded. He hated this bit, not knowing if Sherlock had already solved the whole thing or if he was just as much in the dark as John.

It was an uncomfortable thing to admit that he couldn't trust Sherlock's process, not with this case.

"You know my methods. Don't rush the process."

"I'm not _rushing the process_ — you're _stalling_ it for whatever it is you want to do with Alex."

He expected Sherlock to get angry, but instead, his friend, his _partner_ looked suddenly tired.

" _John_. I promise you that if everything goes the way I intend, we will both find out what happened to Lucy, and things at home will be better."

"So, you can't solve the case unless you've got what you want out of Alex. Do you have any idea, the damage he could do if you tell him about Eurus if you tell him about everything and he gets prosecuted? What about Mycroft? I bet he'll lose his job. Your parents? Could Sherrinford be shut down after some public outcry over whatever? People don't like secrets."

Sherlock scoffed. "You like them perfectly fine. You keep plenty. So did Mary."

"And you."

Impasse. Cul-de-sac. Nothing more to say.

"Mr Cushing promised to video the whole parcel for you."

"Not enough. Give me your phone; I left mine in our room." Sherlock held out his hand, and John begrudgingly parted with his mobile. Sherlock promptly called Mr Cushing, demanding an additional video featuring the address book in Lucy's mobile, scrolled through slowly. Though he couldn't hear the words, John could make out that Mr Cushing was protesting that he couldn't unlock it. Sherlock gave him an odd set of instructions, including seemingly random keypresses and number codes.

"He'll deliver the address book details," Sherlock said curtly after ringing off.

"What was all that? How is he going to unlock the––"

Sherlock shrugged. "Ask Mycroft some time and watch his face. I assure you it will be amusing. As Mary put it, MI5 data security would be a good idea."

________________  
  


After breakfast, fate smiled at John when he caught Ellie on her own in the library. Sherlock and Alex had retreated to his study to continue what they'd presumably began the night before. Worry clenched its fist around John's windpipe, but he'd said nothing; he'd learned by then that arguing over something Sherlock had already decided on would be fruitless.

"Hi, John," Ellie greeted him without much enthusiasm and continued reading.

He wondered if her flat affect was a personality trait or a sign of something more sinister. "Ellie… what? I never caught your last name."

"Browning." She looked up from her book, which at a glance, John could recognise as one of Mandrake's since Sherlock had been pouring over a copy of that very tome days earlier. A slight smile now adorned her lips; she appeared flattered by his interest.

"He's quite a guy," John offered.

"He is," she beamed.

"Do you know him well?" John asked. He was convinced by now that she was not related to Mandrake, that their connection was based on something more complicated.

"Not yet. But I will."

"What makes you say that? Listen, I don't mean to pry, but I'm curious."

Ellie folded a corner of the page she was reading, and carefully arranged the book squarely on her lap as though it was very valuable. "I came here to learn from him. To maybe, one day, work with him."

"How long have you been here? He seems to spend a lot of time away from the house."

Ellie sighed, then held her breath for a moment as though deciding whether to voice what she was thinking or not. "I don't think his assistant likes me much. But I'm patient. I wrote to him, asked for a job after I graduated from Sylvia Young. He didn't answer, so I talked to people online until I found someone who knew where he lives. I showed up on the doorstep and told him I wouldn't leave until he took me on."

"And he let you stay?" Considering what Alex had said about his friends staying at the house, it did seem plausible. At least Ellie hadn't been coerced in any way to come here unless this was a cover story she'd been told to stick to. She seemed honest.

"Yeah. I help around the house, but Minako won't let me anywhere near his work."

"They're not involved, are they?" John asked.

She shook her head. "He's not involved with anyone like that," she insisted in a tone which, to John's ears, sounded slightly possessive.

"Not even… Lucy?" He decided to fish around. "I heard they were close," he added fuel to the fire. "I know she left recently, so I thought maybe something happened between them."

Lucy frowned. "I know she was a patient of his, kind of. He sometimes has private patients, although less and less because of the shows. I don't know if there was more to it." She shook her head. "No, can't have been."

"Did you talk to her much?"

"Just once. She kept to herself. One evening, I found her down by the pond, her phone in her hand and she was crying."

John's heart rate picked up. "Did you ask why?"

"I asked if she was alright. She just shook her head but didn't say anything more. When I saw her at dinner, she seemed calmer. She never spoke much, except to him."

This didn't quite sound the Lucy her father had described. Mr Cushing had painted a picture of a social, happy young woman.

"When was this?" John asked.

Ellie gave a date. It was four days after Lucy's last message to her father.

"The next morning, she wasn't at breakfast. Her coat was still in the foyer, though, so I thought she might have gone out. I didn't see her after that. Alex said she'd had a family emergency, so I just thought she'd left in a hurry and forgot the coat."  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sylvia Young is a theatre school in London, founded in 1972 by its namesake.


	10. Meanwhile, In London

  
  
"Evening, Mister Holmes. Miss Rosie," Mycroft's housekeeper greets the two of them courteously.

"Evening." Sherlock's reply turns to a mutter since Rosie chooses that moment to wrap her arms around his head with a giggle. It takes some repositioning of her in his lap before he can see through the door well enough to enter his brother's Belgravia residence.

They trail behind Mrs Jackson into the foyer where she assists them with their coats.

"I'm afraid Mister Holmes is not at home," she then explains, her tone betraying a certain indignant bafflement over their appearance.

Sherlock knows Mycroft runs as tight a ship at home as he does at work, expecting from his employees' loyalty, discretion and exceptional availability at short notice, which is then compensated for generously. There is little turnover in his private staff.

"No need to start fussing. This is an impromptu visit, and I know he's just left Vauxhall." Sherlock lifts up his phone and shakes it to emphasise his point.

In the wake of the discovery of Eurus' existence, the boundaries between him and Mycroft have been redrawn. There is a new alliance being built in the ruins of a complex conspiracy which Sherlock would initially have described as a betrayal. Now, he's not certain that he knows the right word for it. What Mycroft has done has cost the older Holmes brother a great in terms of his personal life, and Sherlock accepts his motives as noble even if his methods had been… sinister.

 _Not as sinister as our little sister, of course_. Sherlock understands the wish to protect those one cares about from perceived evil; it had been his guiding force when he did what he did to John: misled him, left him behind. To deny the same moral leeway to Mycroft or John would be hypocritical, and he finds he doesn't have it in him to retain his initial shock and anger.

What allows Sherlock to track his brother's whereabouts just as Mycroft tracks him — though he executes much less of it nowadays — is nothing more complicated than the standard 'Find My Friends' app. When Sherlock had demanded a reciprocal connection, which would replace Mycroft's historical and now less needed CCTV espionage, the look on the man's face would have made an amusing Christmas card.

All internal surveillance of 221B ceased on the day when John and Rosie moved in.

Hurrying after Rosie who is now running deeper into the apartment, Sherlock thumbs open his phone and the app and makes a note of the dot marked MH having stopped at a restaurant close to Vauxhall Cross.

The delay doesn't matter. There are several hours left until Rosie's bedtime; plenty of time to hail a cab or to deign to accept Mycroft's inevitable offer of transport home to Baker Street.

"Would the young lady be in need of dinner?" Mrs Jackson asks Sherlock as he jogs after her past the kitchen.

"No, no, we had something on the way." John would not approve of the nutritional contents of their evening meal, but Sherlock believed in indulgences needing to be a part of any Watson's life, and if he wasn't supposed to know what John was up to right now, then that deal could work two ways. The fleck of chocolate ice cream on her skirt might clue in her father; Sherlock would take full responsibility. Besides, they'd also split a roast beef sandwich and an iced tea. No need for baby food; the girl was already proving herself to be quite the culinary connoisseur. At least she and Sherlock hate the same dishes in John's repertoire.

He finds Rosie in the library; it is both her and Mycroft's favourite space in the house. She knows where the old, worn collection of children's books is; after her first visit, they had mysteriously disappeared off a higher shelf and re-materialised on the very lowest, at a safe distance from the fireplace where a shining, new grille had been installed around the same time.

Mycroft could hardly be described as a sentimental person. His caring manifests in protection. _John is the same_.

As for what and whom Sherlock's older brother imagines to be protecting this weekend will be the topic of conversation once he gets home. Sherlock isn't the least bit of surprised that Mycroft would work on a Saturday or a Sunday; for him, work is like digestion — something he enjoys more than any sane man should, though he'd always pretend otherwise.

Duty. Queen and country. Professional integrity.

 _Pfft to all that_ is what Sherlock would say if someone asked.

If there is one thing Sherlock has learned about his older brother during the past few months, it is that he had fallen for the ruse, too — believed the lie of what Mycroft had wanted to project as his aspirations. Yes, he is a career man. Yes, he is a patriot. Yes, he is a micromanaging neurotic busybody who derives near-sexual pleasure from rearranging world politics to his liking and does it with the barely concealed glee resembling that of men who build miniature train sets in the basement.

Above all, however, he is a brother and a son. And that imposes a debt on Sherlock he still doesn't quite know whether to accept or reject.

Rosie drops down onto the thick red, floral Tabriz rug, book in hand which she then waves in Sherlock's direction before nearly dropping it. "Read!" she commands.

Sherlock sits down on the rug behind her, leaning against the bookcase and arranging his legs so that Rosie can sit in his lap with her sock-clad feet firmly on the floor.

The book is _Winnie-the-Pooh._

While Sherlock had graduated to nonfiction and adult novels at a very young age, he remembers enjoying the A. A. Milne classic well into his early teens. Christopher seemed like an intelligent boy who had little to no human friends, and whose life seemed to centre around the time he was off school. That's when he got to do what he very well pleased, imagine the kinds of playmates he wanted. _He told himself a better story than reality_. Christopher's world was always safe; it lacked tragedy and loss and the sort of fear that couldn't be cured with a good cuppa and some cake. It was thus very different from Sherlock's childhood — at least what little he remembered of the time when Eurus still lived with them. Memories of her are very fragmented, like a puzzle many pieces of which have been lost along the years. He wants to remember — and doesn't. And slowly, he has begun to let go of that need he's always had for answers and knowing every bit of the brutal truth and chasing facts without any regard for the personal cost. Knowing what had happened to Victor had cast off some ghosts, but awakened guilt he knows interacting with his sister cannot help him alleviate. If anything, it feels like disrespecting Victor's death that he'd even attempt to reconnect with his murderer.

 _To forgive_. Does that mean to accept, or simply to elect to acknowledge what happened and that the person responsible still has redeemable qualities?

Sherlock doesn't know. His sister remains an enigma.

Rosie tugs at his sleeve, and he realises he's holding the book but hasn't uttered a word yet.

He clears his throat, compels himself to focus, and soon they are engrossed in the story. Sometime later, Sherlock prompts her to run to the other side of the room to flick on a light switch because it's getting dark and thus harder to make out the words.

Mrs Jackson comes in with a tea tray. She gets the fire going a few minutes before the front door opens and closes. She hurries to the foyer, presumably to inform the master of the house that he has visitors.

"Piglet!" Rosie points out, stabbing her chubby toddler finger on Eeyore. She seems to think all the characters are piglets, regardless of what they are called.

"We need to take you to the zoo more often, Watson," Sherlock tells her with a smile, and gives the wispy, blonde hair on her crown a kiss.

Sherlock has no inhibitions about displaying affection to Rosie, not even on occasions at home when John watches the two of them together. He appreciates the fact that, during those moments, John keeps his distance, and the look on his face seems to signal that he's memorising the sight. He allows Sherlock to find his way around the strange creature that is tiny Watson, doesn't rush in to instruct and correct the way he interacts with her. It feels like trust, and it feels like respect. It also feels very strange to Sherlock because his childhood was full of guidance from professionals.

Sometimes, John takes photos of Sherlock and Rosie together and tries to do it, so neither of them will notice. Rosie often does and instantly demands to play with John's phone. It's a new one; his old one is still somewhere at Sherrinford, confiscated when he and Mycroft were questioned by the staff. Maybe it had been disposed of. They certainly never got it back even after Mycroft had made some inquiries.

Sherlock had gifted him with a new one two days later. It wasn't because he felt guilty for what had happened to John in Eurus' clutches. No, he could, even then, separate her responsibility for her actions from the simple fact that they are siblings. It doesn't make him complicit, does it? It's just that John had been through so much, just because Sherlock has been a part of his life. He owes it to John to move on from… things. Things that had happened between them.

_We're both battle-scarred. Leave it all be and walk on._

"To what do I owe this pleasure?" Mycroft asks as he enters the library.

A quick scan of the sight tells Sherlock what his brother had for lunch, where he's been today, that he's changed dry cleaners and that his new shoes chafe. _All of it inconsequential._

Rosie spots Mycroft, squeals brightly which makes the older Holmes cringe a little. Then, she runs as fast across the room as her legs can carry, nearly stumbling once, to her… uncle. Mycroft seems to be uncomfortable with the designation, which amuses Sherlock to no end.

"Myko!" she shouts and clings to his trouser leg like one of the monkeys they had watched at the zoo in Regent's Park.

"My- _croft_ ," the object of her acute affection corrects, and gets ignored. Rosie's face is buried in the soft wool of his tweed trousers.

He lets her calm down, extricates himself, then leans down. "It is good to see you, Rosie. Have you been fed?"

"Yes," Sherlock replies quickly. "Never you mind that."

Mycroft then directs his attention to Sherlock. He is obviously making a note of the jeans — more versatile for a day out in the park with a child than his usual suits — and his cardigan, and refrains from commenting. Sherlock knows his dress sense is still better than John's.

"I see your curiosity has got the better of you, then," Mycroft comments dryly as he settles into an armchair by the fire. Sherlock rises from the floor, goes to Rosie, who is now playing with the tassel of a decorative pillow, and sits her up on the sofa it's adorning. She drops down to lie on it, slipping a hand into Sherlock's and looking thoughtful and a little tired.

Sherlock gives it a very gentle squeeze, then focuses on his brother. "You're slipping, brother mine. Teaming up with the worst liar in all of London?"

"I understand and respect John's reasons for not advertising this endeavour to you beforehand."

"Because I would have insisted that he not go alone? This is a partnership; one we have agreed on to be built on trust. He's reluctant to allow me to visit her. So, why should he go back? Alone?"

Before, Sherlock's irritation over having to admit Mycroft know something he didn't would have led to an argument. Now, needs must, and he has Rosie to consider. She is outstanding at sensing tension between the important people in her life, and such things distress her.

"This is too complicated to be simply a matter of trust. I won't pretend to know John Watson as well as you, but I will say this: the nature of his loyalty is very like yours, brother mine. It triumphs over self-preservation."

"Sherrinford," Sherlock says simply. "He's gone to see her."

Rosie has tucked a hand under the tasselled pillow she'd pulled under her head. Her eyes are closed, and her breathing is chasing a pattern indicative of sleep. Sherlock finds it astounding how her lights can go out so suddenly; like a kitten, she can drop off mid-play.

Mycroft sighs. "I told him it would be difficult, if not impossible, to conceal from you."

"The conference was supposed to be in Edinburgh, not in some wilderness without WiFi. If he'd truly lost or forgot his phone, he'd have emailed me instead of using _you_ as a proxy. Maybe you wanted me to find out; otherwise, you'd have constructed a better cover for him."

"His visit would lead to a conversation with you regarding the results. I saw no reason not to give you ample time to prepare for it."

"To prepare for what, exactly?"

"His assessment."

"Of whether Eurus is worth it?"

"Once you have the data, you catch on quickly," his brother concedes. "Though _worth_ is not the word he used."

Sherlock fixes his gaze — not angry, just insistent— on Mycroft to prompt him to elaborate. His hand finds Rosie's sleeping form, and he strokes the girl's back, just like John does at bedtime. The cab ride home will go easily if she'll still be half asleep.

"He wants to acquire data to assist you in deciding if there is a realistic possibility of rehabilitation for her and meaningful interaction between the two of you that won't pose a risk to what he now sees as his family."

" _He_ sees? What about me?"

"Your definitions are your own, but I see they mirror John's." Mycroft nods towards Rosie.

Sherlock's lips tighten. "He doesn't trust me. Hasn't trusted me after I came back."

"You would have stopped him from going. Or joined him."

"Wouldn't that have been for the best? If he's trying to decide whether I should be seeing her, wouldn't seeing the two of us together be the best evidence available?"

Mycroft is silent for a moment. "I suspect this visit may have been about him, too. Things he wishes to know, things which Eurus may not be able to tell him, but he might realise them as a result of his discussion."

Vexation rises in Sherlock. _Couldn't Mycroft finally stop being so habitually cryptic?_

"So, he doesn't trust me with his plans, and he doesn't trust my judgement to make these decisions without some overbearing recommendation from him, formulated without my input? I thought we were done with all that."

"You have both been through an immense amount of stress in the last three years," Mycroft replies amicably. "I would hope that the lessons learned not to go to waste just because you misinterpret his actions."

"Is he doing this because he wants to get back at me for… leaving?"

Sherlock doesn't presume Mycroft to know John's heart well enough to be able to answer this, but the question has been burning a hole in his conscience since the moment he deduced John's current whereabouts.

Yet, his brother's expression is one of conviction he shouldn't possess. "No. Is it not a great enough show of trust that he would leave you in charge of Rosie's care for an entire weekend?"

"I look after her all the time. _We_ look after her."

"Sherlock Holmes, _family man_. Is that not a miracle in itself, after everything?"

Mycroft rises from his chair, opens the safe hidden behind one of the bookcases, and pulls out a folder. "He asked me to arrange his visit to Sherrinford. But he also had a second request, which may change your mind about his faith in your trustworthiness."

Sherlock receives the papers, skims the contents.

It's a will, naming his as the beneficiary of John's meagre collection of belongings and his depleted funds.

It also names him as Rosie's guardian in the case of John's demise or incapacitation.

"What? Why? Surely his sister––"

"I won't use her recovery from alcoholism as an explanation, because that would by extension exclude you as a former addict. No, this is not a decision made through a process of elimination, but a choice; a preference. This is John Watson moving on, redefining his family just as you did that day when you learned that Eurus was alive. He trusts you with the most precious part of his life."

"I––" Sherlock glances helplessly at the tiny girl asleep next to him on the stiff antique couch. "I can't possibly––"

"Yes, you can," his brother promises. "Just as you always have. And there is more."

Sherlock's head is spinning.

"He told me that he might follow up with a request for a petition for joint custody once he'd spoken with you on these matters. I do not know the timeframe in which he planned to gather the courage to do so. We are all reeling from the events of late, but rest assured that John has not mislead you this weekend because he doesn't trust you."

"Then _why_?"

"Because he has convinced himself he's repaying a debt."

   
  
  



	11. Intent Is Everything

 

 

> **There is no person so severely punished, as those who subject themselves to the whip of their own remorse.**  
>  _— Seneca_

 

"You're boring me," Eurus announces.

John had never thought she'd care that much about the case itself, so he has tried to pick up the pace in relaying the important details. "Not a lot left, I promise. I hope you're at least curious enough to find out what happened to the victim."

"You could just tell me, like Sherlock does: ' _I solved a case where a man had been killed by a rival botanist who stabbed him with a potato peeler because his name had been dropped off their joint paper which was going to be published in Nature_ '", she rattles off in a very good parody of Sherlock's tone when he triumphantly explains to the lesser minds around him how he has cracked a case. "Sherlock's right, you ramble and never summarise," she then declares, looking petulant and sounding annoyingly superior, reminiscent of Sherlock once again.

If John had met Eurus under different circumstances, in a ' _meet my sister Eurus_ ' kind of scenario, would he have liked her? Certainly, he would have considered her interesting, once her cleverness was established. Would he have been attracted to her?

Something tells him no. Then again, he _had_ been attracted to her under her disguise of a random, kind stranger on the bus. It had been an Oscar-worthy performance, especially the casual warmth she had exuded since her real demeanour is always cold. The therapist she had been pretending to be had felt cold, too, but John had found that somehow reassuring: a sturdy wall for him to pound with his proverbial fists and to rail at, unflinching, requiring no consolation or empathy. Someone who could put him back on track, kick his arse, tell him to get the hell on with it.

She never did. Instead, during their two appointments that week, she kept subtly steering the conversation towards Sherlock. John had thought that it was some sort of standard fixation therapists might have, trying to deconstruct his grief and mixed feelings about Sherlock as something repressed. But then she had told him who she really was, and it all came crashing down. She'd shot him with some sort of a tranquiliser, and by the time he came to with a pounding headache, she was gone. At least she'd left the real therapist alive, but only barely. After a week of being stuck in the closet, she was carted off to an ITU with rhabdomyolysis and dehydration.

John remembers standing in the kitchen, the vase from which Sherlock had quenched his thirst three weeks earlier still on a side table. After John had called him, Sherlock arrived just in time to witness the real therapist being loaded into an ambulance. John hadn't detailed the events on the phone; instead, he dragged Sherlock to the kitchen by his wrist, sat him down and asked him the question that had ultimately led to Sherrinford: 'Sherlock, who's Eurus?'

Sherlock had blinked, in that distracted manner of his, unaffected by the enquiry because it didn't feel personal to him. The sight of his bafflement proved to John instantly that Sherlock truly did not know the woman claiming to be her sister.

John, still feeling a bit faint on his feet, had grabbed another chair and dragged it right in front of Sherlock so he could drop down into it. "Sherlock, do you have a sister?"

Sherlock's gaze had narrowed like it always does when he's trying to connect dots in his head, but the quirk of his lip had been incredulous. He must've thought John had got his wires crossed somehow.

"Are you alright?" Sherlock had asked him, sidestepping the issue at hand.

John had snorted. "Not really. Someone just pointed a gun at me and drugged me after locking up my real therapist in her own closet for a week. No, I'm not bloody all right. Oh, and let's throw the other thing in here too. It turns out she's a master of disguise, because she was a different woman on the bus, Sherlock, with whom I flirted, and I've been fucking _texting_ her! That was her, and somehow I didn't realise it."

"You've been… texting your therapist, who is claiming to be my sister?" Sherlock asked, eyeing him suspiciously. "What were you drugged with? Are you sure you shouldn't be taken to a hospital?"

John had slammed his palm on the kitchen counter. Sherlock had flinched, which made John hate himself more than he could actually bear to think, but he pushed those thoughts aside. "Sherlock, if there's no truth to any of this, then it should be easy to rule out. Call Mycroft. Or your parents. Ask them."

"I can't call my parents and ask about a hypothetical sister," Sherlock had said. "That's preposterous. Not to mention insulting." Not something Sherlock usually considered when dealing with people, but John understood how parents could be a special case, even for Sherlock Holmes.

"What about Mycroft?"

"What about him?"

"He'd tell you the truth, wouldn't he? Something is going on, Sherlock, I swear!"

Sherlock exuded scepticism.

Suddenly, John had an epiphany. "You said a woman came to see you. If she hadn't, how would you have known about Faith Smith's note? How would you have ever latched onto Smith? Sherlock, if this person can impersonate two people, would a third be such a stretch of the imagination? She manipulated you to start investigating Smith!"

While John had deleted the contact information of the woman on the bus, he'd never deleted the text messages from her, and there had been a selfie. It took only a moment to find it. He had then thrust his phone into Sherlock's hands. He'd looked at it, and when his gaze had connected with John's again, he no longer seemed at ease or unconvinced.

"This is her?" Sherlock asked him sternly. "The woman on the bus? The therapist?"

"She even put the flower back in her damned hair! It's her! She claimed her name was Sheila something–– it was something weird, hold on––" John scrolled through the messages. It was stupid, really, that he hadn't deleted all of them. "Wommill. Never heard such a thing."

Sherlock's eyes narrowed. "With an e or an i?"

"Sounded like an i to me. She said it was Welsh."

"Whatever it is, is it decidedly _not_ Welsh." Sherlock grabbed a pen and pad from the breakfast bar and wrote the name down with the letters spaced evenly. He crossed out all the letters one by one in a strange order, then wrote down two new ones:

_William Holmes._

"Anagram," John breathed out, feeling like his diaphragm was caving in on itself. _William Sherlock Scott Holmes._

For lack of a better word, Sherlock looked spooked. "The woman in that photo… That's the Faith Smith who came to see me." He then wasted no time in retrieving his own phone from his coat pocket and selecting one of his speed dials.

"Oh, never mind if you're in some inconsequential _meeting_ ," Sherlock retorted when the other person picked up. "Who is Eurus?" he then demanded.

He didn't seem to get an answer from his brother, because the silence stretched on. The therapist's apartment was quiet since the forensics unit was only just getting arranged outside. John could hear that Mycroft – who must have been Sherlock's conversational partner – wasn't saying a word.

"Mycroft. _Who is she_?"

Soon, the call had ended, with Sherlock cradling the phone in his hands, looking alarmed.

John remembers licking his lips nervously until he couldn't keep silent anymore. "Well?" he had prompted.

"He told me to forget I ever heard such a name."

John is jolted out of his memories by the sound of a palm slapping hard the plexiglass separating him from Eurus. Instinctively, John backs away a step.

"You're _boring me_!" she scolds him.

John looks, _really_ looks at the young woman who has played so many roles, assumed so many aliases, in order to set up her elaborate scheme of revenge. It is hard not to hate her for what she has done. It is even harder to understand why Sherlock thinks her beyond redemption, especially considering that she'd set Moriarty on them.

Sherlock may think it was his decision to leave John behind for two years, but she is the real reason he'd stood on the roof and told John goodbye.

 _You don't like it when people don't do what you want, do you?_ John thinks. _An era-defining genius still stuck in the terrible threes._

John steps closer, two steps closer, three steps closer until he's so close that his breath condenses on the armoured glass. "Bored? Really?" He looks around the stone walls of the cell. "I don't think so. You must be starved for attention these days. Be grateful that I am here."

"Why are you here?" Her tone is monotonic, distant, but she doesn't avert her gaze.

"That's for me to know, and you to find out." It's a childish answer, but then again, in many ways, he is dealing with a child.

Eurus flounces over to the bench and sits down. "Get on with it then."

 

 

\-----------?-----------¿-----------?-----------

 

 

When Sherlock emerged from seeing Alex, John was waiting for him in their guest room. He leapt to his feet immediately when the door opened, hastily trying to gauge Sherlock's expression. John decided that he looked slightly irritable but otherwise fine. In fact, it seemed his default expression these days.

Sherlock went straight for his bag, digging out his phone, which he hadn't taken with him when he'd met up with Alex. John wondered what he should be calling their meetings. Therapy sessions?

"Has Mister Cushing been in touch?" Sherlock demanded to know.

"Yeah, he messaged me to say he sent you what you asked for."

Sherlock's eyes practically sparkled with curiosity and satisfaction when he unlocked his phone and found two messages. John joined him to watch the videos they contained.

The box Lucy's belongings had been sent in was indeed a cardboard one — a commercial package that had once housed biscuits. The surface was glossy and dark blue, so anything written on it would not have been very visible. It was probably why they had wrapped the whole thing in paper. Sherlock had told the man over the phone to place everything, including Lucy's belongings, in a plastic bag and to turn them over to the police once he'd videoed everything. John hoped there would be fingerprints.

The address was not handwritten but a computer-printed strip. The paper was ripped at the other end, but the opposite side was still intact. It was folded symmetrically, perfectly, the free edges of the paper tucked neatly underneath one another, and no sticky tape had been used to secure the ends. Only one piece, hidden underneath the edge of the long side of the paper had been used to fasten the paper in place. It made John think about salespeople at fancy department stores who were very good at making beautifully wrapped parcels.

"Not a salesperson," Sherlock announced.

John sighed. _Bloody telepath._

"Retail employees have to compromise between aesthetics and not letting the queues get too long. Whoever wrapped this enjoys doing so. A hobbyist, not someone who has to package things for work. Someone who couldn't resist flaunting that bit of cleverness, especially since not using tape would help with avoiding leaving fingerprints. There seems to be faint white residue on the cardboard; they must have used disposable gloves with powder."

They continued watching the video. The keys and the wallet did not seem to pique Sherlock's curiosity and the video about the address book being scrolled through proved, if anything, more frustrating. Mainly first names, nothing unexpected. Lucy's call history, which her father had been clever enough to record as well, yielded nothing untoward, either.

Sherlock threw the phone on his bed after forwarding the videos to John.

"Did you talk to Ellie?" he asked hurriedly, glancing at the alarm clock on the nightstand.

"She said she found Lucy crying by the side of the pond the night before she seems to have disappeared. Some of her things were still here the next morning, but Ellie's not seen her since."

"Have you had a look at the surroundings?

John shook his head. "Not yet. I thought we could do that together." He would have hated to have to go back after missing everything of importance, as Sherlock would inevitably announce. Best survey the gardens together.

"I need to get back to Alex; we're only taking a short break."

"Will you let me observe?"

Sherlock bit his lip. "No. You disapprove, so you would probably be a distraction to both of us."

"Mycroft told me once that you went missing as a child. Do you remember when your Mum lost you at a shopping mall?"

Sherlock frowns. "What does that have to do with anything?"

"Well, do you?" John pressed.

"I do detest the way Mycroft insists on sharing such pointless things with you--"

"Do you or do you not remember that?"

Sherlock looks up at the ceiling, and his gaze narrows. "I remember wanting to go home. Yes. I do recall the incident."

"Well, that's a bummer, because it never happened. At least as far as I know. According to my psych professor at medical college, that's an exam a psychologist named Elizabeth Loftus did on volunteers, talked to them about a made-up but not all that exotic event in their childhood, and 25 % of them ended up very convinced they remembered what never occurred. That's how easy it is to lead people on, to make them believe something happened because we know how flimsy and fickle memory is — we give it the benefit of the doubt." John had done some of his own research.

"Your point being?"

"If I could that easily manipulate you into thinking something happened and it didn't, add hypnosis and someone who's highly skilled in manipulating people, and a test subject who's desperate to dig out memories that may or may not be there––"

"I'm not easily manipulated, John. It's entirely possible I may not even be susceptible to a deep enough hypnosis as what would be needed."

 _Needed for what?_ John wanted to ask but knew that there would be no answer from Sherlock.

"I wish you'd let me be present. I'm just looking out for you."

"Your protectiveness is appreciated — if a little condescending. It's a no. Alex says no outsiders."

"You've been through enough, Sherlock, _seriously_."

"You want me to bury it all, to walk away, is that it?" Sherlock sounded practically insulted. "I wish I could, I really do."

"No, of course not, but… I assume you're aware of False Memory Syndrome?" John asked him, sensing he was losing both Sherlock's interest and his patience, "And how it can be produced by hypnosis?" If Sherlock was capable of creating his own version of being lost even without hypnosis, John truly feared what someone else could do to him.

"Of course," Sherlock replied, in a tone signalling that he felt John was talking down to him.

"Just be careful, that's all I'm asking. Don't let him rummage around your noggin' like he owns the place."

Sherlock sniffed and left the room.

 

 

\-----------?-----------¿-----------?-----------

 

 

Eurus is glaring at John. With a shrug, she says, "Next thing you're going to say that I'm just a figment of his imagination, a false memory. That would be so convenient for you, wouldn't it? No competition."

The accusation startles him because it doesn't seem logical at all. Perhaps it's a sign of what she fears: that Sherlock might want to forget about her again. "You aren't competition. You're family. That means something entirely different to him. Doesn't it to you?"

John is using his anger to try to keep the upper hand. This is his story, his and Sherlock's.

He ups the ante. "It's not the first time he'd risk his own sanity or his life or his health for others," he reminds her. "But he's been through so much so recently, that I really worried about him, what he was doing with Alex." He leaves out what he is thinking: _I have to worry because of what you've done to him_. "Usually, he's very much about the here and now. Getting so wrapped up in things that happened long ago, things that haven't affected his life all that much for years, isn't like him."

And Sherlock is not the only one whose life has been shaped by her existence. Mycroft had been his usual, cryptically melodramatic self when he'd announced that every choice Sherlock had ever made, every path he'd chosen had somehow been because of Eurus; does that not apply to the older Holmes brother's life as well? John couldn't even imagine such a burden, and admired how the man had managed to carve out a career for himself he clearly enjoyed even if it was intertwined with a duty he'd never wanted as Eurus' warden — who would?

While Mycroft had hardened his heart so that he could do what he must, Sherlock had protected himself by forgetting and turning away from the rest of humanity. But, while John accepted that childhood events had affected Sherlock deeply, not everything could be about Eurus. Despite it all, Sherlock had eventually chosen to learn to deal with others, to drop his mask a bit, to open himself up to people again. John likes to think it has something to do with him but isn't as egotistical as to think he's solely responsible for some of the good things in Sherlock's life, especially since he has also been the source of some of the crushing pain he's endured. Perhaps he's being a bit hypocritical by judging Sherlock for suddenly wanting to make peace with his past. Isn't dwelling on the events of a not-so-distant past part of why John himself has come here? He'd be lying to himself if he tried to claim that he had simply come to warn Eurus off. In truth, he also has come to understand, to make sense of why someone would do such things to his family as she has done, and if he could consider such a person worthy of a single minute of Sherlock's time.

He had demanded that Sherlock make peace with the past by learning to look past it, but John hasn't exactly been very good at it himself. He's still dealing with what had happened, how he'd been left behind, how he'd let Mary in and kept Sherlock out. He's still reeling from the aftermath of her death, and from realising the lengths to which Sherlock would go to try to move on. Out of the three of them, Eurus must be the most hung up on the events of days past, because very little has happened to her in her adulthood. Her life has been shaped and defined by the things she had done at the age of five. In that situation, who wouldn't be preoccupied with such pivotal moments?

There is one thing John has wanted to ask Eurus, even though he probably shouldn't. "Was it your plan to get Moriarty to force Sherlock to kill himself? Did I lose him once because of you?"

"Maybe."

"The snipers. Mary?" he breathes out, the word more of a curse than a prayer on his lips now. "Was that you as well, putting her on my path?"

Eurus grimaces. "No, that was Jim. She was the one aiming at you, by the way, at the pool and when Sherlock jumped. In case you wondered how and when you _really_ met for the first time."

When Mary had begun working at the same clinic, John hadn't been in any state to embark on a new relationship. He was still trying to survive the old.

"Jim was the one who pointed your importance out to me. It should have been obvious, really — getting to Sherlock through his best friend. Always a weak spot of Sherlock's. He lets himself care too much. "

"You shouldn't spit on that. He cares about you — enough to come here. Do you care about him?"

"He's mine," Eurus states simply.

John's fingers curl into fists. Eurus still thinks of Sherlock as a toy, a diversion, someone who she could experiment on? Or, is she just saying this, knowing it would aggravate john? She had better start behaving soon, lest John has some serious words with Sherlock about ever engaging with her again. It's obvious she enjoys this sort of thing, riling people up with the worst she could possibly come up with. Had it all been an act at Musgrave? Sherlock had told him that he'd found her crying in her old room, wanting to be rescued. Sherlock desperately wants to believe that it wasn't just an act.

For John, the jury is still out.

"Continue," Eurus orders, breaking his chain of thought.

 

 

\-----------?-----------¿-----------?-----------

 

John walked down to the pond Ellie had mentioned, trying to fend off feeling side-lined. Did Sherlock think he'd solve the case on his own, that he'd carry a proverbial tray of evidence he'd gathered to the Great Detective, from where he'd pluck out the truth like a grape? A part of John wanted to it a decent try, to see how far he can get without having to rely on Sherlock, but he knew he'd be distracted by worrying about him and Alex.

The weather had been dry and sunny after a drought of rain, his phone told him after several minutes of waiting. The mobile reception by the pond was poor, which made him remember how Ellie had mentioned Lucy sitting there, phone in hand, upset. Had she called or messaged someone, received bad news? Nothing in her messages, which her father had relayed to them, contained anything of the sort.

Mr Cushing had mentioned a brother, much older than Lucy. John didn't remember his name, so he watched the video made of her electronic address book again. As many times as he watched it, he couldn't find a single name fitting that of a brother. All the names in the address book were female. That means that the father's contact information wasn't there, either.

Anxiety, coiled together with excitement like a pair of vipers, swelled in John. Often, when Sherlock had discovered something at crime scenes, it has not been the presence of a person or an item, but the absence of something that made the difference.

Lucy had texted her father before coming here. Now, his contact information must have been deleted. John scrolled through the forwarded messages again. He was quite certain Mr Cushing had stated he'd answered her message, but even his reply had disappeared deleted. Why wouldn't she have her brother's number programmed into her phone? Nothing Mr Cushing had said had pointed to her estrangement from either.

John tapped the phone against his palm, turning the facts over in his head. Needing something into which he could channel his nervous energy, he began walking around the pond. There was a small wooden boat that looked rather new on the opposite shore. There was no wear and tear in the oars, and the bolts were shiny instead of corroded. John remembered Alex mentioning he'd built the house less than five years ago. A length of rope lay on the bottom, and he looked at it closely. There was a torn section, not enough to sever the rope but noticeable. It made him look at the side of the boat, where he discovered the rubber shielding on the side of the boat was scuffed in one spot. Perhaps something heavy had been lowered over the railing attached to a rope? John saw two crayfish traps leaning against the wall of a shelter for firewood nearby. Would they be heavy enough to cause such a mark when being hoisted up onto the boat, full of catch? There were also heavy scrape marks on the bottom of a boat that didn't seem to fit a fish trap, but it was hard to say what could have caused it.

What was the Belfast connection? Could it have something to do with the brother and the fact that Lucy had either removed his information from her phone or never put it in, to begin with?

John sat on a rock, noticing that the ground right next to it had been disturbed. He grabbed a branch nearby and dug around the soft sand, but nothing could be found there. Probably an animal digging around for food.

He called Mr Cushing to ask for the brother's contact info. The man parted with it willingly and answered John's questions about Lucy's relationship to both of them: nothing out of the ordinary. He said that the three of them saw each other at family gatherings but had little dealings outside of those occasions. Mr Cushing seemed surprised and slightly averse to discussing his son, insisting he couldn't have anything to do with the disappearance, and that there was no connection to Belfast.

Frustrated, John rang off, stood up and swung around, having decided to go back to the house to see if Sherlock and Alex were finished. Maybe Sherlock could make something out of the markings on the boat. He videoed the surroundings so that he'd have something to show for his efforts and to convince Sherlock to inspect the area himself before sunset.

Just as he was about to put away his phone after recording what felt like every leaf of grass surrounding the small water, John saw it.

A footprint.

Bare, judging by the separate indentations from the toes. It was pressed in the mud, right at the water's edge. It hadn't rained for a while, so the print could have been there for days. Its edges were cracked as was the bare, clay ground around it, baked by the sun. Careful not to disturb it, John hovered his own foot next to it in the air. It was much smaller than his — probably a woman's. The toes were pointing towards the water; if Lucy had gone in, she could have come out from a different spot where there was grass, leaving no prints behind. Still, it had hardly been warm enough for anyone to want to have a swim, and Ellie, wrapped up in oversize cardigans and legwarmers, didn't seem like the sort to take a dip, either. Verona Lou or the Japanese assistant? John circled the pond again, now jogging, and realised that the edges of it would make it difficult to climb out, and there was no stepladder.

John retrieved an oar from the boat and sank it down by the edge at several spots, hoping that no one at the house was looking in the direction, wondering what on Earth he was doing. At no point did the tip of the oar meet the bottom. This confirmed how difficult it would be to get out of the pond without assistance. Clearly, it wasn't a swimming spot. John circled the pond and noticed how easily his shoes left indentations even where there was grass. Yellow flowers grew on several spots along the edge, and there was no sign of them being disturbed.

Be it intuition, morbid wishful thinking, or the sum of some unconscious deductive process, John allowed himself to accept that Lucy Cushing could well still be in the pond.

Sherlock had often leapt to conclusions and demanded backup for much less, John decided, so he called Lestrade. He recounted his findings, and then pointed out, almost sheepishly, that even if he was wrong, it wouldn't take long to search the small pond. Sherlock had wanted him to show initiative, to search this area, to find evidence. Now, he was convinced he had enough to go on. Sherlock might get pissed off at him for involving the police, but so be it.

His first priority was to get Sherlock out of the house, and it was becoming clear that Sherlock was willing to delay and take significant risks in order to stay.

"I can't look for someone who hasn't been reported missing, John," The DI told him minutes later in a frustrated tone.

John frowned, glancing once again at the footprint. "What do you mean? Mr Cushing might not have filed a report with the Met directly, but––"

"We have a shared database. If someone in the UK files a report, we see it. Lucy Cushing? There's no one by that name reported missing. There's a Laura Culver, but no Lucy Cushing, and Culver's fifty-three years old."

John ended the call without realising he hadn't even said farewell to the DI.

Something didn't add up yet.

_What would Sherlock do? Confront the culprit?_

Not without an incontrovertible, complete deduction of the events. John hardly had achieved that.

The blue and grey cloud wall approaching from the south looked as though it might rain. It could well erase what little evidence he had found if it even could be counted as such. He snatched a photo of the footprint, but without a bit of processing, it didn't look very demonstrative. The marks the toes had left weren't clear in the photo.

John marched back to the house, frustrated. He entered through a door he'd spotted earlier but had not used, one leading to a wing of the house he hadn't even seen from the inside. The corridor was identical to the one near their guest bedroom, and he could hear the sound of a hoover somewhere in the house, but not nearby. He took off his muddy shoes, not wanting to clue anyone in that he had been snooping around in these rooms which hadn't been introduced to him.

One of them must've been the master bedroom, judging by its size and the fact that it was in use and disarray. John spotted the leather bag Alex had with him in the car lying on the floor. He stepped in, seeing the same blueprints which he'd seen Alex and Minako pouring over before spread on the unslept-in half of the bed. Leaning in, he could now take in some of the text.

They were the plans for a stage structure. For a show.

In _Belfast_.

John swallowed as a cold sweat broke in even though nothing had really changed except for his perception. He took one more cursory glance around the room before retreating. His heart was thumping heavily and fast as he feared someone would catch him snooping around. It was all still circumstantial, but it was stacking up.

Something on the window sill caught his eye. At first, it looked like a small statue, but a closer look revealed that it was folded from paper. Origami, and quite intricate. Much more difficult than the swallows John remembered having folded with Mary for the wedding to be glued onto the favour boxes. Sherlock had taught them the design for that classic, undoubtedly a product of his YouTube-bingeing.

Suddenly, it clicked: the wrapping in the package. Whoever had done such an amazing job at avoiding the use of scotch tape had revealed themselves in their handiwork. They'd taken care in printing out the address from a computer screen to avoid their handwriting giving them away, but another sort of signature had now clued John into the fact that there was a connection, here.

John hurried to the foyer, thankful for the fact that the house seemed to be symmetrical, and it was easy to find his way from the bedroom to the middle of the house. He collapsed into an armchair, trying to calm himself down with the thought that no one was likely to know what he was doing or why the two of them were even visiting Alex. _We're safe — for now_.

One thing didn't make sense: the phone records could well be a dead end, but why hadn't Mr Cushing filed a missing persons report? He had claimed that the police had been here, and that had been confirmed by Alex Mandrake, no less! Were the two of them, Alex and Mr Cushing, in on this? It made no bloody sense! Did Lucy have something on Alex? If yes, they why would her father have been a part of getting rid of her? Alex didn't seem to have any connection to Mr Cushing or Lucy's brother.

There were unanswered questions here which Sherlock would have to take a shot at, but John decided that he had enough to go by to demand they left the rest of the case to the police. If and when Mandrake got wind of the real purpose of their visit, they'd be in danger.

The house seemed empty, save for the housekeeper who was dragging the hoover from the guest wing to some other part of the house. John gave her a tight-lipped, polite smile.

It was time to leave.

Once the housekeeper was out of earshot, John went to their guest bedroom and wasted no time in packing their belongings. It took a while to arrange a taxi since he had to google around for a local number to call.

He then stood in the middle of the room, hesitating about what to do next. If he brought their bags to the foyer, anyone walking by would be alerted to their hasty departure. If he left them here, it might be risky to return for them if push came to shove. Mandrake didn't seem like a violent type, but they were in his house, surrounded by his staff and his friends, and thus outnumbered. John couldn't rule out a larger conspiracy of silence. The word 'cult' came to mind again, although he thought it was an exaggeration. What the hell were all these people doing here, anyway? Ellie, having shown up on her own, dreaming of a career in showbusiness which seemed terribly at odds with her wallflower, timid disposition. The artist couple who John hadn't heard of before, and who, judging by what John had learned of them last night, seemed to do little else than enjoy the hospitality of a celebrity and had been doing so for months on end, now.

Then there had been Lucy. What had she come here to find?

Were they all like moths, drawn to something they saw in Alex and the air of mystery and promise his celebrity status awarded him?

Had Sherlock fallen for that, too, thinking this man was some sort of a messiah who could change others dramatically, permanently fix their lives? It didn't sound like Sherlock, but then again, he'd been doing lots of things lately that hardly fit the bill.

John ended up carrying their bags out the terrace door and shoving them behind the bushes. They wouldn't be easily visible from anywhere in the house.

When John turned to get back inside, a movement at the edge of his visual field caught his eye.

Someone was watching him from the driveway: Minako. Car keys in hand. Her expression was steely, emotionless, unreadable.

John practically ran back in, an ominous air premonition fighting for his attention with the facts of the case. He ran back to the guest bedroom, reached into the case of the pillow on the bed which he'd slept in, and retrieved the only belonging he'd deliberately left unpacked.

His gun.

Then, he went to find Sherlock.

 

\-----------?-----------¿-----------?-----------

 

"You're going to stop there? How peculiar. You've come all this way to tell me this ridiculous story, and you can't be bothered to finish it?" Eurus is wearing her signature petulant expression and, for a moment, John is reminded of Sherlock when he is just about to go off and sulk on the sofa.

Eurus is clearly not happy with the cliffhanger John is leaving her with. But, it's important to establish that he's the one calling the shots. He had nearly fallen under her spell once. That is not going to happen twice. He has laid this out in his mind carefully. Now is the time to start extracting something from her in exchange.

Carefully trying to conceal his sudden discomfort, he shudders at this thought: what if he had actually slept with her when she was in her disguise as the flirtatious bus passenger? The risk, the temptation had been greater than he likes to admit. The question is out of his mouth before his head has time to consider if he really should ask it. "Why were you on the bus?"

"I was curious as to how easy it would be."

"Easy?"

"To take everything that's in your blog, all the descriptions of what draws you in, to construct someone you would fall for."

"I haven't described Mary in much detail on the blog," John protests.

Eurus fixes her gaze on him, and her expression oozes a well-rehearsed disappointment in the mental capacity of the rest of humanity. "No, but half your prose involves descriptions of him. You made it ridiculously easy for me to draw your attention and keep it."

_A female Sherlock. Logical. Obvious. Fuck._

It has taken a long time, but John can now admit it to himself: he had cheated on Sherlock with Mary, and on Mary with Sherlock, in a way that had little to do with sex. Sherlock had accidentally hit the nail on the head when he had tried to explain away both his strange text message affair with a lesbian dominatrix and John's emotional infidelity with texting as being nothing.

Intent and motive are everything. The action that follows is simply the consequence of a decision made. John has been a cheater, a liar and someone who habitually deceived even himself.

Still not as bad as you, he thinks, watching Eurus in her cage.

He walks out of her subterranean chambers, delighted at the notion that he can cut a conversation short anytime he wants, that he has such a power over her, even if she tries to trip him up intellectually all the time.

Would Eurus have used carnal knowledge of him to humiliate him, or use it to disparage him with Sherlock somehow? Would she have dangled the explicit details in front of him like intellectual candy, knowing data is not something Sherlock can resist? Would she have used it to show how shallow, weak, and stupid his supposedly loyal friend really is?

Something tells John Sherlock would have wanted to hear it all. Even if it had not been good for either of them, he would have taken that chance, because of reasons John knows he fears thinking about, but which he must face one day.

Not for the first time, he is thankful that he'd never managed to cross the line and translate his interest into actual infidelity. But, does it make him any less culpable?

 

 

 


	12. The Monument of Memory

 

 

> **“Of course I’ll hurt you. Of course you’ll hurt me. Of course we will hurt each other. But this is the very condition of existence. To become spring, means accepting the risk of winter. To become presence, means accepting the risk of absence.”**  
>  _― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry_  
>    
> 

When he returns to Eurus, John decides that he's going to stand there until she initiates the conversation. Does she want to hear more of the story? Or is she going to return to poking around their flirtation when she was pretending to be just a woman on the bus, and her abuse of the therapist role?

"Weren't you being somewhat paranoid regarding Mandrake?" Eurus points out, standing up and primly brushing her trousers with her hands even though as far as John can see the floor is absolutely spotless, no sign of dust anywhere.

"What do you mean?" John asks.

"You had a non-violent person for a suspect, who was probably not even aware that you were investigating him, an assistant who had only seen you carry out some bags out of a side door and some circumstantial evidence. To me, it seems that you were looking for an excuse to drag Sherlock out of there, instead of being genuinely concerned about the two of you being in physical danger."

Her approach is interesting, and he takes heart from it. Perhaps this is going to be easier than he had assumed.

He can't resist pointing out her mistake. "That's where you're wrong. During cases, I've seen the most surprising people turn violent when their secrets are dragged out into the open when they realise that they might be going to prison. Sometimes Sherlock wrenches out confessions by provoking people; more than once, he's had a black eye to show for it."

"So, you compensate for his lacking sense of self-preservation by being overprotective? Case in point, your coming here."

"Is he in danger, then, visiting you? Is that what you're trying to say?" John challenges; annoyed at being chastised.

Eurus snaps her mouth shut and regards him with a snide expression, and John's anger suddenly rises like a gust of wind. He bites his lip and only barely stops himself from telling Eurus to stay the hell out of their lives, to _fuck off_ because that would be giving her ample proof that he's the very pushover emotional earthworm she thinks he is — that she has won this round since he has succumbed to profanity.

He can't let her get the upper hand, so he continues his story.

 

\-----------?-----------¿-----------?-----------

  
The only room he hadn't search for Sherlock in yet — or at least that's what he assumed since he hadn't exactly memorised the whole house like Sherlock undoubtedly had — was one with a heavy oak door. It was located beyond the kitchen as a separate wing jutting out of the front wall of the building.

John didn't knock. Thankfully, the door was unlocked. He stepped in, closed it behind him, his right hand holding the gun concealed behind his back.

The space was as large as he had reasoned from the shape of the outer wall. Instead of the bare wood of the rest of the house, reed mats covered the floor here from wall to wall. There was a low table in front of a white sofa with a tell-tale tissue dispenser screaming of a psychiatrist's or psychologist's appointment room. Narrow, decorative wall panels with gold-hued geometric wallpaper lent the large space an air of luxury. A raised dais in front of the window featured a white leather chaise longue and a matching armchair.

From that armchair, Alex rose to his feet upon John's entry.

And sitting on the chaise longue, eyes closed, looking expressionless and reassuringly serene, was Sherlock.

His hands are were the seat arms, palms upwards, fingers unmoving. When John stepped closer, he saw a calm, slow, deep breathing pattern.

He expected Alex to talk by a whisper, but he didn't. "John? Can I help you?"

His tone was less dismissive than John would have expected. After all, he'd just interrupted their–– their––– _session_.

"Absolutely. By calling this whole thing off. _Right now_ ," John commanded. He glanced at Sherlock; there was no reaction.

Alex's hand hovered in front of him in a reassuring, almost supplicative gesture. "Sherlock mentioned your worries. Let me assure you--"

"What did you do to Lucy Cushing?" John snarled and revealed his hand from behind his back, flicking off the safety of his service weapon.

He watched as confusion, alarm and indecision played on Mandrake's features as the man's eyes fixed on the gun. There was something satisfying in that sight, and for John, it was not a new one. He had watched numerous suspects starting to falter in their attempt to get away with murder, to realise it was over. _Sherlock would want to hear about his first reaction._

This time, however, John couldn't enjoy the feeling to its fullest, because there was still the issue of Sherlock, who hadn't even stirred despite their conversation.

"I didn't _do_ anything to her! We found her when she'd already----" Alex trails off, and John realised instantly how this fit with what he'd found by the pond. "She did it herself," he said, tone deflated.

"If she killed herself, where's the body? If you found her, _where is she?_  Suicide candidates don't tend to hide their own corpses, do they?"

John stepped closer and to his surprise, Alex approaching him as well despite the gun by stepping down from the dais, looking desperate as though he was about to plead his case. "John… The damage was already done, there was nothing we could do, it was obvious she'd been there for hours."

 _What damage?_ "Is she still there, then? _In_ the pond?"

The rope. The disturbed ground. The drag marks in the boat. Someone had weighed her down after discovering her.

Alex closed his eyes and draws a ragged breath, his shoulders sinking in defeat. "Yes. She took sleeping pills she stole from Minako's bathroom and walked into the pond."

But why hide her? Why not alert the authorities?

"You sent her belongings to her father — you, or someone working for you," John reminded Alex. To him, it seemed like a remorseful act. "You must have. Your next show's in Belfast, and you must've been there to prepare."

Alex looked shocked. "Jesus. No! I didn't, and I didn't tell anyone to do that!"

"I saw the origami and the packaging," John reminded him. This was quite satisfactory, confronting a culprit. John had thought that merely watching Sherlock do such a thing would offer him the same experience, but this was _better_.

"It must have been Minako. She does that. She should have let me make her forget, to not implicate her." Alex seemed more shocked at this than John's original accusation. "She'll accept anything I put in my shows, but won't subject herself to it," he said bitterly. "Hypocritical, but a good stage manager. Very protective." His tone was pointed.

"So, she was trying to create a diversion, to throw off suspicion from you?" John suggested, and Alex shrugged, looking deflated. He slumped down to sit on the sofa table.

John lowered the barrel of the gun just a little. Sherlock ought to be hearing this, and he realised he'd veered off the course of his priorities. He had one more question, though. "Ellie thinks Lucy was a patient, not just a friend or a weekend guest. Something happened during her sessions, didn't it? That's why she killed herself, assuming that's what really happened?"

Minako could still have done it if something happened during the sessions and she was about to raise public hell about Alex.

"I had no idea she'd been smoking stuff with Verona Lou, some hallucinogen. She came into a session already a bit out of it. I shouldn't have gone through with it, but she insisted. She was in a hurry, worrying that her father would find out what she was doing. They'd never encouraged her to get help, and she hadn't been able to find a hypnotherapist with reasonable enough rates for her financial situation. That night, she remembered things she had been trying to recover, trying to understand why she kept having difficulties with her life. She'd been to a horde of different therapists, without results. She thought that hypnosis was the way to go."

John remembered Alex's insistence about avoiding patients with certain kinds of issues. In the end, he didn't even need to ask what this was about.

"It was the brother. He'd abused her when she'd been very little. She was convinced her father knew."

Maybe she had confronted him, John thought. It seemed rather obvious, now, why she would have deleted their contact information, deciding she couldn't have anything to do with them anymore. It also explained why the father wanted Sherlock to investigate — perhaps it wasn't just about finding her, but also to find out how much Alex knew about Lucy's past, her abuse by her brother and the cover-up by her father. It had to be a cover-up — why else would he have not filed a missing persons report? Perhaps he assumed that he could buy Sherlock and John's silence about the circumstances of her death. The police would have to be involved once she was found, but perhaps Mr Cushing had relied on being able to use the two of them to keep certain things out of the proceedings.

What was the value of family ties, if all they gave you was pain?

"She took her own life. The damage was already done," Alex repeated. "I couldn't afford a scandal like that, people suspecting I'd done something to her or thinking that what I do makes people unhinged."

John found himself wholly unsympathetic. "Why'd you do it, then? Why go through a session when she was under the influence of something? Why risk things for a client or whatever she was to you?"

Alex shook his head. "Lucy was… She was the reason I divorced Minako, but she wasn't ready for a relationship. That's not what she was looking for. I made a mistake. I thought if I helped her, if she got over it, then maybe she would come with me to Belfast."

Sherlock's words from a few years back rang in John's ears: _'Crimes motivated by passion tend to be so dull and unimaginative._ '

Going forward with a therapy session with Lucy may not have been criminal, but it certainly broke all the rules of responsible therapy. "If she got over what? Years of abuse?!"

He nodded towards Sherlock. "Bring him _out of it_ , now. Sherlock?"

"If you interfere now, you should know that he'll stay in this state. I am a medical professional, John; I wouldn't want to see that happen. He needs to be brought back carefully, slowly."

"Is that really how you see this thing, you a professional and he the patient and not, for instance, a magician and his stooge?" John spat out the words with venom. He had known this was a bad idea from the start, but when had Sherlock ever listened to reason?

It was now obvious that all Mandrake cared about were his career and his reputation. He may have cared about Lucy, and John understood why he had little sympathy for the desperation of his brother and father to find her, but it was still wrong, what he'd done.

Malice burst into flame in John's gut. "It would have made a nice headline for your next TV special, won't it – London's most famous detective splaying out his entire terrible childhood for all to see."

Alex frowned. "Childhood? What are you talking about?"

"That's what you've been doing, getting him to remember, or planting Lord knows what in his head? Probably also the idea that he'd be a very willing clown in your media circus."

"John---" Alex raised a pleading palm, "Please put down the gun."

How could Sherlock have taken such a huge risk? There are things in Sherlock's past that have to stay private, even secret. The existence of Eurus had to be kept secret; there were plenty who would want to make use of her intelligence and even more who would take advantage of her ruthlessness. At that moment, John believed that Sherlock had lost all sense of proportion in his pointless mission to deal with his family's past.

"You need to forget everything he has told you," John commanded. " _All_ of it. If you speak so much as a word of it to someone else, I swear you'll have much more than me to worry about." John had no doubt in his mind that Mycroft would not hesitate a second to make Mandrake disappear, a celebrity of no celebrity. 

"If we stop the sessions now, I won't be able to help him finish what we've started."

"I don't fucking care. I _know_ the lengths you're willing to go to keep your reputation. I _know_ why you insisted that sexual abuse, in particular, is a subject matter you won't touch in your therapy work, whatever that even means anymore. These people follow you, they think you can help them, but you're not in it for that. They string along, stroke your ego and lavish praise on you when needed. You _use_ people, and I haven't got any reason to believe you wouldn't use _him_ like that," he tells Mandrake, cocking his head towards Sherlock.

"John. What we've been doing here is hardly anything I would put into the public eye. Someone forgetting something isn't exactly very entertaining to watch."

Relief washed over John. "So, your sessions with him didn't work, then?" _Not_ remembering must be better than whatever this charlatan could have offered. If Alex was as good as his books and programs claim, he could plant whatever nightmares he wanted in lieu of real memories.

"We haven't got to the point when we could have even attempted erasure or creating an alternate version, which is what he requested and even gave details about. If we stop now, we'll never find out if I could have helped him, which is not good news for either of you since _you_ were obviously the one he's doing this for," Alex explained. "He asked me to keep this from you, but you're forcing my hand here."

John let the barrel of the Browning descend in his confusion. "What the hell are you talking about? He already _has_ an alternate memory version of her."

"Her?" Alex looked thoroughly puzzled at the pronoun.

At no point had Sherlock actually detailed to him what his cover story of needing help with was. _Something's not right._ John looked at Sherlock, still out of it: serene and breathing deeply and calmly on the chaise longue. He tried to connect the dots in his head. Erasure? Alternate version? For _his_ benefit?

What the _hell_ …?

"You need to tell me exactly what he asked you to do."

Mandrake sat down in an armchair. He looked a bit less unnerved now, probably because he realised John didn't have all the information. He now had some leverage.

John remained standing.

"He told me that there are incidents that have happened during the last two years, which he'd like to _'work around_ ' — his words. He wants those memories to have different interpretations for him and a much lesser emotional impact. If possible, he wanted them removed, which I told him might be impossible; he asked me to replace with something much more benign. He said that he has already been able to distort, dispel and replace very emotional memories without probably even intending to, and he was hoping to make that process conscious and controllable. He wanted to forget those things so that the two of you could go back to how things were before."

_'I delete things.'_

"Why?" John asked. Granted, his own recent past was full of things he'd prefer not to be constantly reminded of, but it was all part of life, the pain and the good times, and it was not for him to decide what to keep. It all happened. There was nothing he could do about any of it: Moriarty, Magnussen, Mary.

Sherlock would try such a thing, of course, he would because he wanted to be a bloody machine when he isn't. _'He was an emotional child_ '.

"He said that you find it hard to be around him because of these events, these memories, and the same applies to him. He wants to start anew, to rebuild trust. He didn't say so, but I suspected that those things hurt him greatly, and that might be a bigger reason for wanting to forget."

John bit his lip; the breaths he was drawing felt like lead in his chest. "Events." It wasn't a question because he was afraid that he'd have to listen to the answer.

He knew he still had to do just that.

"One of them happened at a mortuary of a hospital---" Alex began explaining, and that's when John stopped listening.

"No," he groaned. _God, no._

Sherlock had taken this risk, to endanger himself, to let a trespasser into his Mind Palace, to threaten the very integrity of his psyche and the domain of his memories, which he valued more than anything in the world, because of---

Him. Because of the way John had hurt both of them that day.

 _'I promise you that, if everything goes the way I intended, things at home will be better_ ' is what Sherlock had said to him.

This was never about Eurus. No, it was all about  _John_.

"What else?" he whispered. The devastation had already happened. A few additional punches wouldn't make much difference.

"A wedding, which I admit was kind of surprising. Your reaction to him returning from faking his death. Your wife's death."

John pressed the heels of his palm on his closed lids, the cold barrel of the gun cold against his temple.

Sherlock was, yet again, willing to let himself be endangered, damaged, altered, in order to allow John to continue just as he always did: in denial, wrapped up in himself.

Sherlock was right. They didn't know how to act around each other anymore. Rosie was a convenient excuse for distant civility, an unwitting peace-maker, a pivot point for pretending the future was all that matters.

They had both hurt each other terribly. Repeatedly. Constantly.

The past needed to be dealt with. And Sherlock needed to realise he had the right to say _enough_ , too — to let John know when he'd been hurt by something John had done. Sherlock needed to remember these things so that he can say _no_ and _enough_ ; if the time came when their friendship hurt him more than it helped him.

John was not entitled to him. He had to remember, too, so that he would know what he was capable of. He needed to do better. He needed to do so much better like he'd promised himself the day he stopped hanging onto the ghost of Mary.

"Can you really make someone forget things permanently?" John asked. "Could it have worked?"

"Yes. Especially if it's information that isn't of very personal nature, and it's still in short-term memory, the success is highly likely. I first offered to try to change the emotions connected to those memories; much easier, doesn't leave confusing holes and is not as unethical; you can never know what the consequences of trying to remove a memory are. But, he demanded that those memories were erased, changing them into something less upsetting wasn’t enough for him. He asked for my help, and I am attempting to give it. It's just that he seems to be holding on to those memories harder than he may have realised, and since they are associated through, well, _you_ , to some good memories, it's been a hard and slow process. I told him that he was likely to be reminded of those events if he continued to associate with you, but he said that the two of you never talk about them."

 _That's where you're wrong_ , John thought. _That's where Sherlock is wrong because I'm going to change that. We need to start talking if we want us to survive._

John suspected the trance state Sherlock was in was something much deeper than what could be interrupted by snapping his fingers. He needed Alex to bring him out, but the man now knew he had some bargaining chip.

So, John would bargain.

"You let him be, and I let you make me forget about Lucy. Nobody is the wiser; we walk away, tell Mr Cushing we couldn't find her, just… stop this, with Sherlock. Do whatever mind-wipe you want on me, test it afterwards, I don't care, but this stops _now_."

He won't let Sherlock take all the blows and to try to fix what's broken by sacrificing himself. He is the victim here — it should be John who fixed things, to carry the burden, to be the one who tried to mend bridges. What was going on with Alex might be an attempt to get help, but it was… wrong on some very profound level. John didn't know how to put into words why that was, but he was as certain of its wrongness as he was that the Earth orbits the sun.

He sat down on the sofa, letting the gun rest on the seat next to him. He would be taking an even bigger risk here than Sherlock had, but he hardly had options. "The truth about Lucy disappears, and you bring him out and let us leave."

It was obvious that Alex was confident in his skills, and he looked so hopeful and relieved at John's suggestion that he just might accept the deal. "Alright."

John shot him an impatient glance. "Come on, then!"

"It's not a fast process."

"I don't fucking care. We do this, you and Minako get off the hook, we walk out of here, and that's it. If what you say about Lucy's family is true, then I hardly give a toss whether they have to spend the next twenty years wondering what happened to her."

They deserved it. They were obviously _not very nice people._

John put the gun on the table and pushed it away.

Alex drank from a water bottle on a desk near the door, hands shaking slightly. Then, he returned to John. "First, I need you to close your eyes."

 

\-----------?-----------¿-----------?-----------  


"If he made you forget, how are you telling me all this?" Eurus asks.

Then, before John has a chance to answer, her expression twists into a triumphant grin. "Sherlock solved it, didn't he. He _must_ have since even _you_ could work it out. He couldn't just walk out of there and let the whole thing go."

"The conditions we reached with Mandrake was that we'd leave the house, never to return again. Sherlock never saw any of the evidence from the pond before I turned it in to the Met."

Eurus crosses her arms, and John relishes the look of annoyance and disbelief on her face.

"Then  _how_?" she finally relents to ask. John notices how riled up she seems over not being able to deduce something, and how similar her oozing annoyance seems to the mood surrounding Sherlock when a case has him stymied.

"Well, it turns out that, while Sherlock may be the poster boy for susceptibility to being hypnotised, I'm not. Far from it. It was pretty easy to pretend I was under, though, since it only requires you to sit still and breathe with your eyes closed. That, and Alex had no idea I'd already texted to Lestrade everything I knew about Lucy Cushing's disappearance right before I stormed into his den. I'm not as stupid as the Holmes clan thinks."

John snorts. "And, it turned out that I could have brought Sherlock round on my own. The clever arse had made Alex build a sort of a failsafe into the parameters of the suggestions he was using. Alex only told me that after he tried to hypnotise me."

Revealing it earlier would have cost Alex all his leverage.

It was just that John was the one with the bigger leverage: the tricks of the Great Mandrake didn't work on him.

 

\-----------?-----------¿-----------?-----------

 

"You already know how to bring him back; the failsafe is you. He gave me a phrase he says you often use when he's trying to concentrate. He made me construct everything so that he didn't have to tell it to me. I guess he didn't trust me fully, either."

John stood up from the sofa and shoved his gun under his trousers' waistband on the small of his back.

He then had to stifle a laugh. "You said Sherlock picked the phrase?"

If Sherlock had selected something that was related to him, it truly must've meant that he didn't trust Alex, or maybe not even his own judgment. John felt more relieved than he had all day.

It took him very little time to realise what the phrase must've been.

He walked up to the chaise longue. "Earth to Sherlock," he said.

The effect was not immediate, which was logical since this was no light trance. Still, soon enough, eyelashes began to flutter, breathing became faster, and Sherlock's shoulders gained the usual slight tension they carried when they were not in the safe confines of home.

Sherlock licked his lips once before looking around the room and then up, finally locking eyes with John. His eyes narrowed slightly before his brows rose, not in alarm but reassured recognition. "John?"

"We need to go home," John told him, playing along with what he was now supposed to have a compulsion to do.

Sherlock hesitated for a moment until realisation seemed to dawn, and he stood up, straightening his jacket. "Yes, of course."

 

\-----------?-----------¿-----------?-----------

 

"So you just left? Just like _that_?" Eurus asks incredulously. She looks wholly unconvinced. In her mind, even Einstein is probably a bit daft.

"Well, the case was essentially done, and we needed to get the hell out before someone got wind of what was going on. I don't know what suggestions Alex had given to Sherlock earlier regarding Lucy; he was oddly willing to just leave without solving anything, didn't argue me on it. On the train back, I told all the facts to him, of course — I'd recorded everything I'd found on the phone, even snapped a photo of the origami and the stage blueprints. Even though there was no missing persons report, Lestrade was perfectly willing now to look into it."

"I assume this Cushing woman had been affected by the seer's sage Sherlock recognised? That it somehow triggered her memory?"

Sherlock claims that cocaine makes him think better, but from John's perspective, all it does is completely mess him up. He has not been very coherent or at the height of his abilities during any of the times when John has seen him using. Perhaps it's simply difficult for Sherlock to assess his own mental prowess when under the influence.

Eurus doesn't ask any further questions about the case, and it's just as well. John had never assumed she'd care about a dead woman, except maybe for what he was trying to signal with sharing the sordid tale.

They had met Mr Cushing once afterwards; Lestrade had managed to finagle them into the man's interview at the Met. It turned out that Mr Cushing had fought with his daughter on the phone about the accusations towards her brother. He hadn't filed a missing persons report because he feared that, with her gone, the suspicions could never be put to rest; he was hoping she would come to her senses. As far as he knew, she had never been abused, making the whole thing a perfect example of false memory syndrome brought on by hypnotism and a desire to find answers where there were none, perhaps combined with a hallucinogenic as Eurus had suggested. Either that, or it was all true, what Lucy had come to believe about her brother. But with no proof, no evidence to indicate whether the vague memories from years ago were true or false and, there would be no further investigation into the brother's actions. No justice. No final truth.

Except for the fact that Alex Mandrake's career was over. The press had a field day when he was arrested for preventing the lawful burial of a body.

Eurus examines John's expression for a moment. "Who did you come here for, me or you or Sherlock? Do you want _me_ to forgive you for what you did to my brother? I don't understand. None of this has anything to do with me."

A fist clenches around John's heart. All she cares about is herself. As long as she'd thought he was trying to remember her, Eurus wanted to know about the case, but as soon as she realised that it was about Sherlock trying to deal with his relationship with John, then her interest flagged. This tells John that she likely isn't interested in learning to get to know him beyond the ways in which he fulfils her needs and longing for cruel entertainment.

"You hurt him because you can. That applies to very few people," Eurus concludes.

Of course, she knows. She must know how the two of them, John and Sherlock, feel about one another. _Yet another thing we never talk about._

John doesn't know what to say. He had wanted to think he's here to protect a friend and in order to get some sort of closure for himself.

"Who are you running from? Yourself, or him?" Eurus demands.

He doesn't want to give her an answer. He doesn't want to even  _think_ of that answer, so he walks out to get some air.

 

 


	13. Lost In The Sky

 

> **To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.  
>  ** _― C.S. Lewis_

 

When John returns to the subterranean cell, she acts as though their spat hadn't even happened.

It's because she has other, more pressing concerns on her mind.

"Has he remembered more? About me?" She asks, dragging up her sleeve to scratch at the faded self-harm scars on her forearms.

John purses his lips. "There have been bits and pieces, but it's hard for him to discern which things are his real memories and what's something else — something his brain had cooked up to cover up the truth. I've tried to help him research methods to remember more, methods that don't involve getting hypnotised by criminals Mycroft seems to be right in that there are no obvious triggers for returning recollections except blatant facts. Facts he spent years trying to hide from Sherlock."

John can't help thinking back to when Eurus had been posing as his therapist. It was hardly surprising that she hadn't been a very good one. Her responses were stereotypical, cookie-cutter ones, the empathy obviously fake and lukewarm. Clearly, she had more of an ear for humour and sarcasm than Sherlock, but then again, her neuropsychiatric makeup was undoubtedly different. Sherlock had mentioned that, when had been posing as Faith Smith, Eurus had described his brother's interest and fondness for other people _'sweet_ ', and that she said he was nicer than she'd been expecting. Coming from her, it was undoubtedly a criticism. It must've been such a drag for her to pretend to care about John's troubles. She had been on a fact-finding mission, nothing more, all part of her obsession with Sherlock. John's own conscience, outsourced to the spectre of Mary, had been much more helpful. She had cried when he couldn't; she'd been honest when he was too afraid to be, she had made him do better in all things. John had lied to the therapist-Eurus when he'd said he didn't think about Sherlock after their… was ' _breakup'_ the right word? Perhaps it was. In reality, there were three things he thought about during that period when he wasn't too drunk to think at all: Mary, Rosie and Sherlock.

 _Always_ Sherlock.

Eurus will never understand that. She'll never see it, not really, why others would seek Sherlock's affection while shunning hers. And she understands even less why Sherlock had chosen John all those years ago, and why John had followed him willingly into the dark.

Even Mary knew that the only one who could save him was Sherlock: ' _things you need to know about the man we both love_ ,' she had said; the man Sherlock loved enough to make Mary vengeful. Her recipe for John's salvation was a punishment for Sherlock: _'go to hell_ '. John was Sherlock's to start with, never stopped being his, and Sherlock came back from the dead to reclaim him.

 _'Go to hell_ ', Mary had told Sherlock, because she was probably convinced that Sherlock didn't even know what to do with the love he received.  

Who the hell could compete with _resurrection_?

 

Eurus intrudes on his thoughts: "He tried to buy your affection back by catching a serial killer, by showing you that he couldn't do it without you. Culverton Smith was targeted by Sherlock to prove that even if he got your wife killed, he could still save others if you were willing to help him. Is that why you think he’s a good man?”

She makes it clear in her tone of voice what she thinks of Sherlock's _weakness._

"Do you even understand the concept of goodness?" John asks. "He is the best and the wisest man I have ever known."

Eurus laughs, but it's not a warm, indulgent sound. "Him? The _Slow One_? God, you are an idiot. That ridiculous story of yours, about how you think you solved the case of Lucy Cushing. It was obvious what had happened, but you had to blunder about for ages and make stupid accusations before you finally realized. Even Sherlock must have been able to solve it in a fraction of the time. Or, he would have if trying to rid himself of his memories of you hadn't interfered. Did it work? Is he free of you, at last?"

_We'll never be free of each other, just like he'll never be free of you._

"No. He's not tried to contact Mandrake, or anyone else about memory recovery or deletion since we left Alex's house. Not as far as I know."

"What happened to Mandrake?"

John explains that Alex Mandrake is Alex Martin again: a former mentalist, now unemployed. Someone had leaked the details even though Mr Cushing had been desperate to keep Lucy's name out of the press. Something had made John wonder if it could have been Ellie. In her single-minded, slightly frightening determination, her wrath could have been terrifying once she realised her career dreams had gone up in flames. ' _It's always the quiet ones you have to look out for'_ , Sherlock had told John once. The tabloids had had a field day with the downfall of the nation's favourite magician. John doubts he'll be able to keep the house.

It remains unknown whether Alex Mandrake's only mistake was trying to cover up a suicide. Lucy's body bore no signs of violence, nor were there any narcotics to be found in her body, although some time had passed and most of them could have degraded away as her remains were worn down by the water.

Eurus gives an impatient sigh. "So boring, that case. No memories recovered, no memories deleted. What a waste of time."

John doesn't respond. He believes Sherlock's assurances that he has sought no further contact with Mandrake after the case, and that he hasn't attempted to find anyone else to assist him in what he had originally claimed he wanted to do: to reprogram a psychopath like Eurus.

If Sherlock is going to remember Eurus and help her, it will have to happen naturally. As for the rest of what he'd asked Alex to do--

John can tell that Eurus is getting frustrated by his lack of response.

She snaps peevishly, "He has the right to visit me if he wants; you can't dictate. It's obvious this whole story thing of yours is a veiled warning that he should give up, a circumspect way to say that digging up the past is dangerous and pointless." Eurus regards him coldly.

He laughs at her, and it's a sound not unlike a cold November morning. "And Lord knows Sherlock doesn't do things he doesn't want to do. But that's beside the point. I'm not going to tell you to leave him alone. What I ask is that if that genuine bit of human decency Sherlock so desperately wants to see in you exists, you either cut the cord or stop toying with him. That you let him make the decision without any mind games."

He waits for an answer, but none comes.

"You're too clever not to know better," John says and stands up to leave. "If you make him do things, if you wreck him, it means you lose. He won't be coming to you because he wants to, because you make his life better. No, he'll be coming out of _pity_."

"Can he bring the baby to visit?"

John's eyes go wide. "No, because you just want to see what he's like with her. You're not interested in her; it would just be an experiment. Any association with you puts Rosie in danger, so it's out of the question. Sherlock may think he owes you something, and that's why he's risking things, but I don't owe you anything. Nor does Rosie."

Eurus bites her lip, looking petulant. "You still came all the way here."

"I came here for him, not you."

"He wanted you to move back into his flat ages ago, you know. Still does."

"If he did, then it was his responsibility to tell me." John pinched the bridge of his nose. "You can't just… Tell me these things, as if you knew his mind. You can't just stir the pot and see what happens."

"Why? You said _no more secrets_. Isn't it easier not to delay discussing important issues?"

"Those issues are not _yours_ to discuss. Especially if your motive is just to stir up shit because you're bored."

"Then why does he tell those things to me?"

"He also talks to a skull for God's sake, just to bounce off ideas. Not that much of a stretch that he'd talk to you. Or _at_ you."

"He says you once made him talk to a balloon and he found it very insulting."

"That's not at all how it---- _Never mind_!" John is pretty damned sure that he had found the balloon thing even more insulting than Sherlock.

"How does he… do that?

"Do what?"

"Have… _people_. Find people for himself."

Can't Eurus bring herself to say the word 'friend', or does she not think that describes the two of them? John doesn't have an answer. At least not one Eurus would likely understand or accept. The likeliest explanation would deal with the fundamental differences between her and Sherlock and those never go down well when verbalised in her presence.

"But why do you think he's a good man?" She presses on. "Why are you here for him?"

John suddenly feels unsure of his footing in the conversation. He knows that such a falter makes him prey to being picked apart, so he decides on a detour: "Maybe I know a bit about what it's like when your sister turns out to be a certain way, and there's a family crisis because of that. Maybe I thought that I might have something to offer here."

"You're lying."

So he is. He's not here to fix a single bloody thing. He can't. He doubts anybody could. Harry is _nothing_ like Eurus: she's human, she hurts, she tries to make her way through life like everybody else, and she doesn't deliberately hurt anyone. Maybe not even herself.

"Did they lock her up, too?" Eurus asks in a mocking tone.

"No, our dad kicked her out, and she wasn't a part of our lives for several years, during which she wrecked her own." At least in that, there is a parallel.

Eurus steps closer, staring at him intently through the glass — as though she's owed some sort of a further explanation. They both know the angle John has just attempted isn't it.

He draws in a breath. "I'm here for Sherlock, because there are things I could never give him, and because I owe him many things I can never repay." John inhales deeply before continuing. "I'm here to ask that if you have no intention of doing anything else than tormenting him until the end of time, that you let him be instead. He's suffered enough. He doesn't give up on the people he loves, even when it destroys him."

"You make him sound like some saint."

_I may be on the side of angels…_

"He's a good man. He's a much better man than I am, that's for sure."

"Why?" A patrician eyebrow raises, reminding John of Mycroft.

"Because unlike him, I couldn't forgive the person who killed my best friend."

" _Mary_." Eurus' tongue curls around the syllables like a serpent. 

John wonders what she knows about her, besides what he had unwittingly revealed to her during the therapy sessions. He has no idea what details of his life with Mary Mycroft has divulged if any. Why would Eurus care about or be interested in her? Possibly only because Sherlock had made his own peace with her, being more forgiving of her past than John had been.

"Sherlock died to save me, came back from the dead for me, and I married someone who shot him in the heart. Then I hurt him again, and he always forgives me, even if it isn't good for him. Sometimes, I think when people hurt him, he'll let it fester until he can't take it anymore, and that's when he turns to a seven per cent solution. Rinse and repeat."

"Did _I_ hurt him? Badly?" These words sound alien on Eurus' tongue, as though it's the first time she's ever asked such things.

John wonders what her definition of 'bad' is. "You certainly could have done without torturing him, but for the sake of argument, let's put that under the disclaimer of an isolated sociopath. Yes, you hurt him when you were little. Terribly, it seems. Maybe you were jealous, maybe you wanted attention, who knows, but you hurt him. Most of all, by killing Victor Trevor."

"I wanted him to pay attention to me again. It didn't fix anything that Victor was no longer there. So, later, I just wanted Sherlock punished, but that's different."

"First, you tried to kill him yourself. Then, locked up here, you decided that the best way to make that happen was to make him kill himself? That's what you set up Moriarty to do? What happened then should have told you what would happen when you tried to make him kill either me or Mycroft. How could you not see that he would choose his own death rather than make that choice?"

"He cared more about saving you than he ever did about me," Eurus accuses.

"He cared about us both, which is why he's tearing himself apart _now_ , trying to get you to change. Trying to believe you could."

"Do YOU want me to change?"

Her question catches John unawares.

"You want to keep him all to yourself," she then accuses.

"I'd love to see him expand his microscopic social circle, but I'm not sure including you in it is good for him. Still, that's all up to _you_." _Behave, and you might have a chance._

"So, you're here to point me the error of my ways? To make me repent?"

"No. I'm asking you to take a long, hard look at your motives for stringing him along. Maybe part of why I came here was that I wanted to try to understand what could be so terrifying that it made a man who remembers everything want to forget." _And to understand if I could really be as terrible as that, since he wanted to forget things about him and me, too_.

He takes a long, hard look at Eurus. _I'm not you. I've never wanted to hurt him, but sometimes I've just felt like it's all I could do to stay sane. And that's my problem, not his_.

"I can't regulate whether he comes here or not," Eurus says dismissively.

"You're smarter than that. Try again."

"If you want to stop him from coming, talk to Mycroft. He makes the decisions."

"Try again."

"What, then?" For the first time that John has seen her, Eurus looks distraught.

"Meet him halfway. Try listening to him instead of playing some cryptic game."

"He likes games. And puzzles." Eurus is now lost in thought, tracing a finger down the glass.

This makes John think about Moriarty. "I think Sherlock has had enough of those from criminal masterminds for a while. You know, I never really quite understood Sherlock's fascination with the guy," he muses out loud.

Eurus shifts her attention to him with that very Holmesian expression of superior disdain. "Sherlock has always been a glutton for being _liked_. When someone finally thinks he's the smartest, most fascinating thing around, it's only logical that--"

John huffs. "It's not like Moriarty's alone in that opinion. I've always--"

Eurus interrupts him, probably as revenge for being cut off herself. "Moriarty was someone who thought Sherlock was the most interesting thing in the world and _wanted_ him. Who would blame Sherlock for being tempted to overlook the whole life of crime thing, if his other option was to settle for someone who would never be entirely his? Never fully, never like _that_."

"I'm not going to believe for a bloody second that Sherlock would have picked him." _I may be on the side of the angels…_ John shakes his head. "No. Never."

"You're right because he _did_ choose you, _every time._ Despite his better judgment, which is a phrase quite apt even for his gravestone."

The conversation seems to have come to a standstill. John forces himself not to act on his desire to lash out at her for dragging into light things he doesn't like thinking about, things he's not quite come to terms with.

He wants to leave, but he knows he's not finished with Eurus just yet. "As I said, I know something about hurting him. It's easier than it seems, and he will never run out of cheeks to turn. He will never show it, never make you pay for it." 

"If you want to help him, then why are you talking to me?"

The question blindsides John. "What do you mean?"

"You're here because you want to protect him. How is that _helping_ him?"

John says nothing.

He says nothing because she's right.

He came here, thinking he might be able to shake some sense into her, to make her stop toying with someone who has already suffered enough at her hands. But, it's not _helping_ Sherlock. Again, as seems to be the pattern John follows in his life, he does things — very concrete and proactive things — instead of doing the things he really needs to be doing.

The difficult things.

Like _talking_ to Sherlock Holmes. _It seems I'm less scared of talking to a psychopath than I am to my best friend. My… person_.

"What if he never comes back here?" John asks. "What would you do, then?" _Would you regret the things you've done? Would that ruin your life?_

He seeks something on her features, something human, something breakable — a sign that she would be in as much pain as John had suffered after Sherlock had jumped.

A sign that she loves him as much as John does. That she's decided that Sherlock is worth that pain.

Her face is blank.

"You'll still have Mycroft," John offers hastily when he realizes he has no idea how to read her, that he will not find the proof he seeks no matter how hard he tries. There is no way for him to know if any emotion she projects is genuine or what she artfully conceals. That's for Sherlock to discern since he seems to be the only one to whom she is interested in showing some sort of true self. _Assuming that exists._

Eurus averts her gaze, snorts. "' _And if that mocking bird will sing, brother's gonna buy her a diamond ring,_ '", she hums in a haunting, dreamy voice at a CCTV camera in the corner.

Transactional. That's the word Sherlock had used to describe her and Mycroft's relationship.

A realization creeps in: what if part of her reasons for disguising herself, for wooing John as the woman on the bus, had been to find out what it was like to experience being the object of John's affection? What if she did it because she wanted to feel the way she assumed he makes Sherlock feel? Why else would she have constructed that fake girl on the bus the way she did? She was trying to work out what Sherlock saw in John, why he cared so much. The therapist role was another attempt to get him to explain it, or to see it for herself.

She has no one, except for Sherlock. _And Sherlock wants to be with me_.

Is loneliness not worse than even capital punishment? Her grand scheme had proven that the one thing she wants in life is her brother's attention. She wants that more than she wants freedom.

_She doesn't have any answers._

John walks out, not even saying goodbye. Nothing he could say to Eurus will solve anything, and there's nothing for him here. This, whatever this is, is solely between her and Sherlock.

  
\-----------?-----------¿-----------?-----------

 

He goes up to the helipad to watch the waves while he waits for his transport back. The salt in the air soon makes his hair feel coarse and coats his tongue with the taste of algae, but the open space and the wind feel wonderful after the oppressive air in the basement levels. He should have brought his coat — a chill soon travels through him, followed by a yawn that puts a quiver in his stomach.

In his reasoning, it feels obvious now why Eurus has been deliberately cryptic. Or, at least he has a theory: she's afraid to really talk to Sherlock, in case he turns out not to like her, after all. In case he goes away, in case he chooses someone else as he has before. She knows John is not fond of her, so she has little to lose when speaking with him. She's perfectly capable of normal conversation, so the mutism she's been feigning at the Holmeses is an avoidance. It's a safety net, a comfort zone she is too frightened of losing.

He thinks about Eurus' question about Sherlock: ' _has he had sex_?'

Does that define a person?

John doesn't know that about Sherlock; he honestly doesn't. Were there an assumption of heterosexuality there, he would have probably instigated conversations on past experiences, conquests and relationships. But, avoidance and confusion over his own identity had stalled his tongue. He had nearly slept with Eurus if nearly could be a synonym for wanting to. But, his interest in her hadn't been about sex, nor had it been about love — it was about control. He had wanted to believe he was still at the helm of a carefree life, instead of being stuck between the deceitful and the unobtainable. When it came to Sherlock and Mary, John had been a blind eye paired with hindsight. The woman on the bus had been a symbolic way out, a rebellion against an oppression regime of his own making. He wasn't happy with Mary, and Sherlock's company was fraught with a falsehood he had grown to detest — a vicious circle of misery. What had died along with Sherlock at Barts that day was a certain positive sense of the unknown. Now, he was stuck in the life of a family man with a problematic, wacky genius as a best friend. Mary's existence should have made it simple — made Sherlock's role in his life better defined than it had been before. Sherlock had broken John's heart again and again with his fumbling attempts at getting everyone to get along, to play together because he could sense that behind it lay a much more complex mix of emotions than Sherlock was willing to admit or was capable of deciphering. His attempts hadn't worked. Sherlock was an excellent liar, but it's hard to lie to oneself.

 _'The man we both love_ '. Of course, they did, him and Mary. Sherlock had said as much, in his wedding speech. Coming from Mary's mouth, any statement regarding Sherlock's feelings towards John had sounded like a well-concealed curse. The edge in her tone on that disc, in what should have been empathic instructions regarding a joint effort to save her husband, had shocked John. Maybe they had been among the very few honest words Mary had even spoken to her or Sherlock: _'go to hell, Sherlock'_.

It had been those words that had made John let go. Let go of her, let go of his guilt, let go of fighting against the tide of all the things he'd tried to bury from coming back.

He had loved Sherlock. He _does_ love Sherlock. Whether that love is a certain definably sort or not is irrelevant. Sherlock coming back from the dead had made Mary a trespasser on that love. It was as sad as it was morbidly convenient that she had turned out to be a bit of a villain in the story. It wasn't all her fault. They all made mistakes. Humans do, as John is certain even Moriarty would agree.

Everything would be simple, now, if it weren't for Rosie. Then again, nothing feels very complex at all. Rosie needs him and other safe adults in her life. Sherlock is one of them. Rosie even makes it acceptable to express fondness at home towards all of the members of John's reorganised family unit. Lately, Sherlock has received a staggering number of hugs since he has often been holding Rosie when John has returned from work and enclosed both of them in his arms. They can still both pretend it's for Rosie's sake, but slowly, John is teaching himself not to worry about what happens between the walls of 221B. There's no one there to judge them. Besides, if people already make assumptions about them, why should he waste his time trying to change their minds? Sherlock had been wiser than him even as early as when they'd first met. It had never mattered to him, at least not on a surface level, if people assumed that they were a couple. It had taken John six years to realise it was not a flattering notion that he spluttered every time someone insinuated that he might be involved with Sherlock.

Maybe, for Sherlock, it wasn't about sexuality at all. Perhaps it was about yet another rejection — yet another person thinking he was not worthy of affection. Has John, in some manner he hasn't been aware of, reinforced the view that his feelings and the things he wants are somehow more worthy and important than Sherlock's?

The sun is setting. A distant ship is visible on the horizon; these are good fishing waters, but local boats have been taught to steer clear of this particular island.

Sherlock is somewhere across these waters, looking after John's daughter, not because he has to, but because he wants to, even after everything they've been through. He loves Rosie, whose mother wanted him dead.

 _If I ever hurt you again, make me pay_ , John thinks. _Don't turn the other cheek_. _You're worth so much more than that_.

It's superstition, his hope that somehow this notion would traverse the expanse of sea and land between them and slip its way into the head of a certain consulting detective. It's frightening, the realisation that he can slip past Sherlock's defences so easily: like a wisp of vapour, sidestepping all sense of anger and vengeance and self-preservation. 

There can't be any more nights when John sits on his bed upstairs, thinking he should go out, walk the streets alone until he no longer fears himself, no longer fears that everything is getting to him, becoming too much, and he lashes out again because anger is all he's ever known how to manage when he doesn't know how to survive the rest of life. When a night like that comes, he has to sidestep that fear and reach out. Reach out to the one person most at risk of becoming collateral damage. Because nobody else knows what he's been through. Nobody else knows _him_ better than Sherlock, and anyone who thinks John is the more emotionally stable of them right now is an idiot.

He knows what he needs to do, and this time, there will be no ghost at his side to give him instructions.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Only one chapter to go — it will be posted this weekend. At this point I want to thank my beta 7PercentSolution, who believed in this story even when I struggled with it.


	14. The Receding Flood

> **Out beyond ideas of wrong-doing**  
>  **and right-doing there is a field.**  
>  **I'll meet you there.**  
>  _— Jalaluddin Rumi_

 

 

Seven hours later, John rips open the envelope Mycroft's driver had passed him when he'd slipped into the back seat of the black Bentley at the RAF Northolt airfield. It contains a nametag from the conference he never attended, associated train tickets, a receipt from a hotel he has never set foot in, and a black pen from the Surgeon's Hall Museum. John is not aware of what such a place contains, but it does sound like something he could have gone to and picked out a souvenir for Sherlock. _Nice touch,_ _Mycroft._

He is looking forward to sleeping in his own bed. The room he'd slept in at Sherrinford had been moderately comfortable, belonging to a staff doctor who was off duty for the weekend, but the yelling and the clatter echoing from the lower floors of the compound which house the most untreatable and dangerous individuals in the kingdom had kept him awake and slightly alarmed all night. The churning fear in his guts was hardly lessened by having once witnessed the whole place harnessed to the whims of one of its occupants.

He is deposited at the taxi stand in front of the Baker Street Tube Station, behind the corner from Baker Street itself. It's a logical choice since he would have switched to the Tube from a train terminating at Paddington Station.

When he opens the door to their flat, Sherlock looks up from the desk in the sitting room. Rosie is in his lap, and John's iPad which has been placed in front of her on the desk is emitting a strange cacophony of noises. Sherlock is typing with one hand on his own laptop next to the tablet, looking to be sorting out emails.

John chuckles when Rosie emits a squeal much like what has just been heard from the video on the iPad.

He starts taking off his coat. "What's that you're watching, sweetie?"

Sherlock stretches his neck backwards, regarding John with a mix of relief and contentment. He never used to look like that when there wasn't a case on. John is almost tempted to tease him about getting soft and adaptable in his old age. Rosie, captivated by the events on screen, claps her hands together and giggles.

"We're watching _minipigs being jerks_ ," Sherlock informs him and tones down the volume of the iPad. "And surveying the latest batch of messages created by idiots who think a lost pair of glasses constitutes _a case_."

"Good conference?" Sherlock asks.

"Very. Keynote was about the neurobiology of memory and aging," John hastily volunteers, then almost grimaces as he remembers Sherlock's comment about only lies having details. "You would have found it interesting."

"The aging part?" Sherlock asks, eyeing John pointedly with a smirk on his face. "I can see why _you_ chose that session."

"Ha bloody ha. Tea?"

"Please. Rosie's had supper. I hope they fed you at Sherrinford, the fridge is largely empty."

John stops on his tracks. Of course, the bloody genius probably read where he's been on the parting on his hair or something the minute he walked in. Bloody hell. "Sherlock, I––"

"It's alright. Our agreement on honesty notwithstanding, any business you may have had there is yours. Most likely you felt like I would have meddled or tried to keep you from going."

"Meddling is Mycroft's thing, not yours."

"I have re-evaluated my stance on his meddling, by the way. Up to a point."

"Oh?" John fills the tea kettle.

"His intentions were good. He made mistakes but then again, we all do that."

"Even Eurus?"

Sherlock considers for a moment. "You will have to meddle in Watson's life constantly, but you will do so to keep her out of harm's way. That's Mycroft's motive, too, for the most part."

"I do hope you continue to meddle in Rosie's life, too," John replies.

He doesn't tell Sherlock nearly often enough how well he's done helping look after her. How well _they_ have done. And how amazed he is at the ease with which Sherlock has slipped into that role most unexpected by everyone who knows him.

"I hope you won't be offended when I say this, but in some ways, I hope her… normality will be her blessing," Sherlock says.

"Are you sure my and Mary's genes combined actually produce that?"

"I did not mean that she is average, or stupid."

"You meant that she's not Eurus?"

Sherlock leans his chin on Rosie's head momentarily. She is poking the screen with enthusiasm, momentarily pausing to glance at Sherlock, perhaps to make sure everything is alright. When the next minipig video ends, she begins squirming and reaches her arms out towards John.

"Just a minute," he tells her, and drops teabags into two mugs.

He goes to take Rosie from Sherlock, buries his face in her soft neck hairs, inhales in the familiar smell. She mumbles something into his shot-through shoulder but it's not a word.

"I know she's not Eurus. Sometimes it frightens me, the impact other people can have on children," Sherlock says thoughtfully.

People don't try to fix what had happened long ago by being nice to someone else, but John wonders if the resurfaced memories of a lonely little girl taught something to this strange man, motivated him to make sure Rosie gets what Eurus never received?

"Did you see her, or was it just a visit from Captain Watson to inspect the safety arrangements?" Sherlock gets up to find some biscuits in the kitchen cupboard.

"I did see her. She's very curious about you."

"Is that what you talked about, then — me?" Sherlock is trying to sound nonchalant, but John knows him well enough to realise he's trying to subtly interrogate him. _Sherlock never could curb his curiosity_.

"Among other things."

"What is your evaluation, then? Are you ready to declare her a lost cause? That's what you wanted to find out, I assume."

"I honestly don't know. But I do know that it might be useful for you to know that she has no idea how to behave around you. You haven't known each other as adults, so maybe, instead of assuming that the patterns and power structures from your childhood still apply, you could just start anew. Meet her like you met who you thought was Faith."

"Admittedly, I was quite high at the time."

"Still not funny."

Rosie is rearranging the shoulder seam of John's jumper as they wait for the tea to seep. John accepts a mug from Sherlock and puts it on the coffee table. Its corners have been rounded with pieces of cardboard and some duct tape. Sherlock's doing, like all the rest of the childproofing of 221b.

"Why did you go, then?" Sherlock asks carefully after concealing his mouth behind his mug.

"I know you're never going to give up on her even if it's not good for you, what you're doing."

"John, I'm not under _her spell_. I am perfectly aware of what she is."

"Maybe, but for her, you were willing to risk falling under the spell of someone else — I told her about Alex. I told her about what you were looking for from him. Since you are never going to take a step back from her, I hoped that she might do that instead, if I could appeal to whatever shrivelled-up sorry excuse of a conscience she may have." John sees the slight sour shift in Sherlock's expression — even though he has told John many times that it's understandable that John may continue to feel animosity towards her, he can't help being protective of her. "Sorry."

"It's fine."

"I'm not going to tell you to not visit her," John adds resignedly. "What you do with her is your business."

"No, it's not — not just mine. She made it yours, too, by involving you. John, I--- These last six months, I couldn't have done any of it without you."

The statement seems patently deluded, considering certain events wouldn't have even happened without John. Events Sherlock had taken huge risks to try to _forget_ instead of being grateful for them.

"These last four _years_ , Sherlock, there's lots of things you're done _for_ other people. Things that go above and beyond the call of duty, beyond what anyone would expect from a friend or a partner. Before you try to help Eurus, you should try to examine why you do these things, why you forget about yourself for others. You have got to stop sacrificing yourself, risking your life, your physical health and your mental health for others, because you think you owe them something." _Because you think you have to repay them for their affection. Because you think you're not worthy of it._

"I meant what I have said to you many times, John. I understand why you would be angry with me, why you'd want to punish me for what happened with Mary."

_Time to bite the bullet. We'll never move forward, never get over what has happened, unless we stop pretending none of it happened or that it's Sherlock's fault._

"No," John says firmly. "This needs to stop. Nothing could possibly justify what I did to you. Not ever. And you don't owe anyone anything for what you did during those two years when I thought you were dead. When I thought _I_ was dead. I'm grateful, more than you can ever know, but it's hard, knowing why you might have been willing to go through it all."

"Where's this coming from?" Sherlock looks puzzled. Dismissive. Careful. A little frightened, as though preparing for a blow.

"For some reason you think that you need to pay others back for the fact that they're willing to put up with you. For some reason you think it's difficult, a burden, that no one would voluntarily want to be with you. I'm here, I've always been here, because I want to be. Friendship, relationships, _love_ isn't payment for services rendered. It never was. Which is why you don't owe me anything. And why you owe Eurus even less. You act as though she pulls the strings, like you're asking for her permission for something, when it's the other way around.  _She_ needs to earn your trust, if that's even possible."

"So, instead of warning me, you've warned _her_ off, is that it? I have a hard time believing you simply went there to chat about me and the weather."

John puts Rosie down on the floor and grabs his mug of tea for fortification. "Whatever you decide regarding her, I'll be with you. All the way. I can't decide for you; Mycroft can't decide for you what you want. Only you can do that. A part of me wants to convince you to never go there, to trust my judgement, but when it comes to keeping you safe and looking after you, I lost the right to ask you to have faith in my judgement at the morgue."

" _John_ ," Sherlock chastises. "I made a vow. That vow wasn't just for the good times. It was also when either of us were at our worst."

"You shouldn't let that vow imprison you in something that might have ended up destroying you. I want to believe that this,  _us_ , no longer will, but I have to be realistic. Things need to change, and I mean things… about me. All I have the guts for now, when it comes to Eurus, is to ask is that you tell me things, that you won't shut me out like you did. Again. You made that vow once. It's time I do that, too, to promise to be there for you because the stakes are higher, now. You're all _we've_ got." He nods at Rosie.

Sherlock looks solemn and a little scared. It's not a common expression for him.

"The three of us," Sherlock says. It's almost a question.

"Yeah. The three of _us_ ," John confirms and clinks his mug to Sherlock's, who's holding his own motionless in mid-air.

"You just spent several days with Eurus. It's all well and good that you want to leave the decision with me but surely, you have some overall impression you could impart."

"Sherlock-- I don't know if Eurus…. If she could ever--"

Sherlock raises a hand to silence him and sits down in his usual chair, placing his mug on the floor. "I know what you're going to say. That it may well be that she can't be fixed, that she'll never accept that things she did were wrong. She may not even be capable of doing so." He pauses and stretched his long arms above his head, sighing as a delicious pop sounds from his shoulder. "I'm not naive, John. Forgivable is not the same as redeemable. I know that, I do. Forgiving someone doesn't require for them to take responsibility of even acknowledge what they've done. It doesn't require insight of benevolence from the culprit's part. If my forgiveness might make the rest of her days easier — assuming she has any use for it — then she'll have it. But that doesn't mean I would willingly subject myself to her machinations if _my_ judgement told me she was harmful. Mycroft made that call years ago, and he may well be right. You're right, too, in that she can't be allowed to dictate the rules of our interactions. Redemption requires an active role in trying to minimise damage, to make restorations, and a desire to do better. The jury is still out on some people regarding their capability to do those things."

John takes in this statement, somehow simple in its surface complexity. Is Sherlock talking only about Eurus?

Sherlock leans his elbows on the desk while John arranges Rosie into his lap on the sofa. She tugs at his jumper again, looking thoughtful before yawning.

"Is she still not napping?" John asks.

Sherlock shakes his head, folding the fingers of his right hand over the tips of his left. "Afraid not, but she has been less cranky for it." He shifts in his seat. "John–– you once forgave me for what you must've considered unredeemable."

They don't talk about when Sherlock left him. They don't talk about someone else's blood on the pavement, about faking catastrophic intracranial injury, about a funeral with an empty casket. "I know why you did what you did. I should be the one redeeming myself for a lot of things. Recent things."

A broken rib. Hairline fracture of the jaw. Too many bruises. John hadn't held back at all at the morgue. The words _'I'm sorry_ ', muttered by John so many times in those terrible days right after Smith's arrest had felt like a cruel joke. There are lines that are not to be crossed.

Sherlock had jumped off that roof to save him. John had done what he did at the morgue because he wanted to hurt Sherlock. _Fundamental difference_.

They're all terrible people, him, Sherlock, Eurus, Mary, Mycroft, locked in a cycle of destruction. Still, somehow, they have to get by. To get on with it. To face the future.

"Stop brooding," Sherlock commands with a quirked-up lip. "If there's something I've learned from visiting her, is that it makes one rather gloomy afterwards."

"She's… intense."

"You're afraid that she'll influence me more than I'll influence her. So, should I be consequently afraid that she has worked her sorcery on you? Maybe you're a double agent now," Sherlock accuses with a smirk.

"Not that I could probably tell, but she wasn't trying very hard to get into my head. She was mostly just interested in you. And brainwashing me would hardly have given her the truth, which is what she seemed to be after."

_Whatever that truth is._

John feels stuffy and sweaty after the long journey back. Does his shirt smell faintly of aviation fuel? "I don't know if telling her about the case made any difference. I had to have something to talk about," John quips. "And it's not like people are usually all that interested in _me_."

"But why would you tell her about Mandrake out of all our cases? I get it, it served as an educational tale about my doing _stupid shit_ , as you insist on calling most of my plans that involve a modicum of risk."

John rolls his eyes. "Because it shows what you're willing to do for anyone who needs your help. Anyone you care about."

" _Anyone_ ," Sherlock repeats. "I don't do things like that for just anyone."

John is aware of the additional meaning of that word for Sherlock. It had cracked the Smith case wide open. It's strange how cases tend to be a weathervane, a catalyst for personal things to come to light for the two of them.

It is also the word John had once used to break Sherlock's heart. _'I'd rather have anyone else.'_  That's what he'd told Molly to tell his best friend, his beloved person, his _partner_.

"Sherlock, what I told Molly to say after Mary died, I don't--"

"It was understandable."

John wants to protest again, but it would just make them go around in circles. Maybe he had a right to be mean by someone's standards. Maybe he did. But that should have been the extent of expressing his anger. It had been bad enough. "There's one more thing. The letter. The one Molly gave you. When you asked Alex to help you, did you also want to help him forget the letter?"

 _'I never want to see you again'_ God, even John is tempted to rip the memory of his written words from _both_ their memory banks.

Sherlock's eyes go wide. "I didn't read it. I-- I couldn't."

"You deduced the contents?"

_'You destroy everything you touch'_

"No, I didn't allow myself to do that. I never read it, John, I tried to put it out of my head, tried to delete it. I burnt it in the fireplace before I could change my mind."

"I'm glad," John offered joylessly. He'd still written it, those terrible, shameful, unfair, hurtful words. He'll gladly carry the memory of those words as penance and long as Sherlock is spared of them.

_'I wish you'd never come back'_

"It wasn't you, not really — that's what I wanted to believe," Sherlock explains. "When you agreed to take on the Culverton Smith case, I thought we could move forward, get past it. It was enough that I knew the letter existed; imagining what you might have written was likely worse than the actual contents."

"I doubt it," John admitted.

_'Mary was right. You are an addiction, because nothing else could explain why I would give you chance after chance after you'd already destroyed my life. You're an addiction worse than fucking heroin and one I need to quit cold turkey'_

"Do you still mean those things you wrote?"

"God, no. No, Sherlock, I absolutely don't."

What he had done, how he had hurt Sherlock went beyond just words on paper. The neglect after he came back from the dead, the refusal to even acknowledge what the man had done for John, the way he let Sherlock risk his sanity and life and health over and over and fucking over again, only to be rewarded with more pain. John felt he had no right to ask for forgiveness and acceptance. Whatever slight Sherlock may have committed by not sharing his Lazarus plan with John, he had done it with the best of intentions, and he had now paid for it so many times.

"We're not even, Sherlock. We may never be even because of the way things have been between us lately. If you'll still have me, have us in your life, you'll have to do it knowing what I'm capable of at my worst."

"' _The man you want to be'_ ," Sherlock quoted Mary, " _'the man you want to be_ ' implies an ideal, someone who you're not, but it also implies potential to reach the state of being that person."

"I guess I'm asking, then, if you could consider accepting a work in progress."

"The day we met was the starting point of _my_ work in progress, John, and it is not one I consider finished. Will you accept, in turn, the possibility as I once presented to you, that sometimes you are — just as I am — terribly, dreadfully, unfortunately, completely and perfectly human?"

"Sherlock… I still need to say it, say that I'm sorry. I've tried to say it but you won't listen, and it's absolute bullshit that you'd think what I did was in any way justified in the morgue. You've said you forgive me, but that doesn't change the fact of what I did."

"John. I am _intimately_ familiar with how forgiveness by someone does not erase guilt and shame, no matter how noble one's intents."

A coldness seeps into John's bones. Sherlock is no longer talking about what happened with Culverton Smith.

Sherlock continues. "It's not bargaining, what we do in life — we can't pay for bad deeds with good ones. I know that now. When I came back, I did not understand this."

He pauses, looks to the wall, the carpet, anywhere but John. "My reasons for keeping you in the dark were admirable, but my methods too ruthless. There should have been another way, and I should have worked harder to find it. I thought I was better at the game than I was. I should have made contingency plans that included you, and I should have made them early. If I came back and still lost you from my life, Moriarty would have won. And that is why a cracked rib, a black eye, a malfunctioning kidney are not restitution, they were a necessity."

"No. _No, Sherlock!_ I'm not going to sit here and listen to you put no worth on your own life or to assume that you have no right for someone to treat you like a human being. You died for me, you came back from the dead for me. I haven't quite wanted to accept that, to face the enormity of that, but I do need to spend the rest of my life repaying it. Actually, no, repayment isn't the word because you didn't do any of it expecting something in return. You gave me up when you jumped, accepted you might not come back. You gave me up when you returned because of Mary. But you didn't give me up when I tried to walk away after she died. I didn't forgive you then, after Mary, not really, because I had forgiven you long before that. I'd forgiven you when there was nothing to forgive, and that was selfish of me, to think that it was something you had to earn. You never did."

"Forgiveness doesn't fix things. It doesn't erase things. Offering one's head on a plate does neither. I know this. If we were people who reacted to things sensibly, reasonably, we wouldn't be us. We reacted as we did, made the choices we did. Attempting to remove memories of it doesn't erase the acts themselves. It is what it is."

"You should get the fuck away from me," John says darkly. "I'm not good for you. I wreck your life as badly as I mistakenly thought you wrecked mine. All you've done is make it better, fix it, keep me on the path."

Sherlock lifts his gaze, stands up and fixes his gaze on John. "I wouldn't be here without you. I wouldn't be sane or sober without you. I would have missed the best years of my life without you, and I would never have had a friend, a family, or a significant other without you. I loathe to label us in any way that you would find objectionable, but I will not shy away from saying that you have been the single most significant individual in my life. This is why the best I can hope for you is that you could step forward, to stop assigning blame and guilt to everything. We owe it to ourselves to try."

John shakes his head and squashes yet another stab of guilt. It seems that Sherlock has somehow become the sensible one. _Who would have thought?_  

"Speaking of the past," John says, "what I was trying to say is that, whatever you want to do with Eurus, I'm not going to stand in your way. But I'm also not going to stay silent if I see her having a negative effect on you. I won't watch you lose yourself. I noticed you've been kind of holding off taking cases after Sherrinford — except for Lucy's."

Sherlock looks taken aback. "You think that's because of Eurus? No, John, not because of her. It's been a hell of a year. Especially for you. I find that…. since you've moved back in, I haven't been as bored as I used to be when there's no work. There's… more going on." He nods at Rosie. "I've scaled back on work because I've wanted to. It surprised even me. I'm not obsessed with Eurus. She exists, I feel partly responsible for her--"

John opens his mouth to protest but Sherlock continues.

"--I feel partly responsible for her, because Mycroft has carried that torch for so long and it's time he stepped back. We're  _all_ responsible for her. She's a Holmes. But I have other responsibilities, too. Responsibilities that are not a burden."

John doesn't need to be a genius to decipher that. "Whatever you decide about her, I'm here. You can talk to me."

"I know."

"You're not angry I didn't tell you about this weekend?"

"Do you need me to be?" Sherlock is now looking straight at him. "I don't see it as a vote of no-confidence. You needed to do this. I am not fond of the fact that it's somewhat condescending that you likely went there to warn her off, but I appreciate the sentiment. I would have done the same in your stead, I think."

"You did do the same." Mary, in the dark of a fake building, shooting coins. Shattering the life John had thought he'd built into pieces. He'll never forget the echo of that shot in the concrete hallway.

He'd blamed Sherlock for many things over the years, but he had never accused the man of not protecting him. That had always been Sherlock's first priority, even at the cost of alienating him. That is what he's trying to repay here.

"If the business with Alex taught me one thing, it is that perhaps I am more tired of living in the past than I am in need of erasing it," Sherlock says. "I certainly don't want guilt and pity and some imaginary family nostalgia to cloud my judgement regarding Eurus. Instead of continuing to drown, perhaps we might stop shoving our heads into the water. For the record, your opinion on Eurus does matter; I trust your objectivity regarding her much more than I trust mine. I meant what I said about family; Eurus robbed you of much of yours. I assume Mary's appearance was linked to her and Moriarty's plans?"

John nods. It still stings, like salt on a wound that never closed. He had fallen for a scam, hook line and sinker. While he does not doubt Mary's fondness for him, the whole premise of their relationship was based on a falsehood.

"You're thinking about her."

John shifts in his seat. "I can't _not_ think about her." He holds Rosie a bit tighter. Their lives are still tied together by her existence, so how could he _not_ think about Mary?

"It wasn't an accusation."

When John doesn't respond to that, Sherlock asks, "Am I correct in assuming you don't intend to visit Eurus again?"

"Probably."

"I don't harbour any hope of her being able to leave Sherrinford. You should know that. I may have, at some point, but… She can't be trusted. I know that. She is what she is, John." Sherlock walks to his desk and closes the lid of his laptop. "And I would appreciate it, if in the future, you told me when I'm going too far. If you think I should stop visiting her because it's detrimental for us."

Sentiment. It clouds the judgment. It really does, and even John thinks so nowadays. _'Tell me when I'm going too far'_. John realises it's all he'd wanted to hear, really.

"You're the very definition of 'too far'." He smiles and lets Rosie slide off his knees to stand on the floor next to the sofa table. "Angelos tonight?"

 

\-----------?-----------¿-----------?-----------

 

Three weeks later, Sherlock returns from a Sherrinford visit on a slightly lighter mood than usual. This time, John asks how it all went, and is surprised at how easy asking that question suddenly feels. It a huge relief that they can talk, now, about what has happened. That they have found the words to verbalise what they never could say out loud, before.

"She's talking. She _has_ been talking, of course, for some time, now, but instead of being her usual self, she had questions," Sherlock tells John, hand tucked away behind his back in that formal way of his which John has come to associate with him seeking an opinion or John's approval.

"About what?"

"Us. She wanted to know how we met, about the Work, about… Everything."

John wonders if Sherlock is trying to gauge how much John is willing to let him reveal about their history. "What you tell her is your business. I trust you to be able to tell what's private."

"She appears shy. Careful. I don't know if it's an act."

John nods as he clears the kitchen table of Rosie's toys and Sherlock's papers to start work on dinner. "Must be a relief, at least, if she's not being that cryptic anymore."

"I can't trust her to be genuine."

"Maybe you don't have to. Maybe you only need to be careful and to try to take her at face value. She's used to people walking on eggshells around her, assuming everything she says has hidden meaning or is part of some carefully concocted criminal masterplan. I didn't learn much from visiting her, but I'm pretty damned sure not everything she says is that meticulously planned, or part of some bigger picture like Mycroft still seems to assume."

John hurries back towards the fridge to pick up an onion he'd dropped, but Rosie has already grabbed it. She gnaws on it a little and begins to wail.

"Sweetpea, I'm sorry. That needs to be cooked first." John takes the offending vegetable away and Sherlock shoves a ginger nut biscuit into her hands instead. John has tried to instil a rule of no treats before dinner, but Sherlock breaks it all the time and seems to relish having a tiny partner-in-crime.

Once Rosie begins contentedly gnawing on it, Sherlock relaxes his posture and moves to pick up his violin. After tuning it, he begins playing a slightly mournful melody, walking around the sitting room.

John opens one of the kitchen cabinets and sighs when there are no clean plates available. He is just about to close the cabinet doors, when something about the song catches his attention.

Frowning, shoulders tight, he begins humming along. Slowly, word appear in his head which he has no idea where or how he has learned.

Sherlock's bow drops, and he turns to face John. His expression is not that of alarm, simply slight surprise.

" _'If I should die, and water's my grave; how will she know if I'm damned or I'm saved_ '," John mutters, the words appearing as though there are subtitles he is reading off a cinema screen.

"What song is this?" Sherlock demands.

"You don't know?" John's brows climb up his forehead. With an eidetic memory and an extensive library of music in his head, he's sure Sherlock recognises every folk song and sea shanty, which is what this piece very much resembles in its baleful tone and a melody well befitting to be played on a stringed instrument.

"Eurus has been playing it, and since it's rather simple, it wasn't much of a trick to pick it up. You must know the source, since you're familiar with the lyrics," Sherlock suggests.

Suddenly, John knows where he's heard it, but there's a problem: "I'm pretty sure I've heard it from her, but she didn't sing, she didn't play anything for me, apart from a couple of notes of whatever when I arrived, and I'm pretty damned sure it wasn't this."

Sherlock swiftly puts down the instrument, hurries to John side and grabs his arms. "When? _When_ did you hear this?"

John racks his brain. It can't have been during the whole disaster of her taking over the facility. Or could it? Why would she have gone to the trouble of planting a song in his head? And why did he only remember it now?

"It wasn't when I visited. I'm sure it was her, but I can't remember--"

Sherlock lets go of his biceps and takes a step back, suddenly looking suspicious. "You have not been behaving in any way that is unlike yourself. How did Mycroft prepare you for your visit? Did he give any advice regarding how to avoid her influence?"

"Resist her bloody mind games, you mean? No. Because I thought that, once I dangled a carrot of information in front of her, she'd want to get the real thing, instead of a version that came filtered by her twisting my mind around."

Sherlock cocks his head slightly, appraising him. "Clever. I assume your barter was about the case, and the manner in which it relates to her — or me?"

"She had other questions. About you. I assumed that she'd want real answers, which would keep her from doing whatever Jedi Mind Trick she usually uses."

Sherlock's expression is expectedly blank as he fails to understand the reference.

"You think she could still have somehow tricked me, left me a souvenir _in my head_?"

"Or mine, alternately. Mycroft still thinks I'm susceptible to her _mind tricks_ , as you called them."

"I told her that if she wants to have a real relationship with you, she'll have to stop tricking people."

"That wouldn't keep her from having some fun at your expense in the form of a parting gift you'd only remember afterwards."

"I know that look. You think she's left you another puzzle."

Sherlock shakes his head. "The fact that both of us have a memory of the same song means that it hasn't come from this weekend's visit. Most likely she implanted it when we were being transported us from Sherrinford to Musgrave. Whatever message she was trying to send with the music, I think it was intended for the both of us."

John sighs. _Another puzzle, then. Just what I don't need_. "So? Where do you want to start?"

Sherlock drops down onto the sofa. "Nowhere. I'm done with that part of her. If she wants to talk to me, she needs to _talk_ to me. No more cryptic hints. No more _violin_."

John is surprised. "What if she needs that? You said that she prefers to communicate with you through playing it; that it's safe, somehow, for her."

"I'm done playing by her rules. She's had ample time to prepare for the day I walked back into her life. I've got the Work to keep me entertained; I'm done with her trying to hide behind that, some circus act of a cryptic psychopath. In a way, as Faith Smith, I think she was at her most honest."

"How's that?"

"She told me I wasn't what she expected. That I was _nicer._ Makes me wonder what Mycroft had been telling her about me."

"Maybe she's just been reading your blog," John suggests with a chuckle. Sherlock's replies to his readership aren't exactly very philanthropic. "She might not be up to the kind of honesty you usually employ with people. She's a very ill woman and trying to analyse her own emotions may destabilise her. She may seem confident, but the story about her on a plane should tell you that confidence is brittle." He lets his medical expertise seep into his words; one thing he can say for sure is that Eurus is a psychiatrically severely troubled person.

"If I stopped going, I doubt she'd have any visitors for the rest of her life. For various reasons, I don't think our parents visiting would have much positive effect."

"Sherrinford is all she knows," John confirms, aware of how peculiar it is for him to be defending her even mildly. "No one has ever wanted her company because of what she's really like. They've either wanted to study her or take advantage of her. She doesn't know how to deal with anyone who's not paid to manage her; hence, she doesn't know how to interact with you. Even Mycroft has kept a professional distance from her instead of behaving like a family member."

"No love lost between those two, no. I don't know how to deal with her, either," Sherlock admits.

"And that's exactly where the starting point for the two of you should be," John concludes. "In the scary in-between. In taking the same risk that's always present when allowing someone to get to know you. They might not like what they find, what you've done, what you _are_ , but they still might somehow like _you_ , no matter what idiotic thing you do, because you're _you_." He gives Sherlock a smile and a knowing look.

Sherlock smiles back. He comes to sit beside John on the sofa, closer than usual. For some time, they watch Rosie playing with her Barbies on the floor. Most of them had come from Molly who had appeared one evening appeared on the doorstep with a large cardboard box of her childhood treasures for her goddaughter.

"I want to sign her up for something," John mused, resisting the urge to instantly help Rosie with slipping a skirt on one of the dolls. _Let her try on her own, first._ "Maybe something with music, or… she's probably too small for girl Scouts."

Sherlock cracked first and leaned down to help her with the Barbie garment. "What do you mean, 'sign her up for something'? What for?"

"Somewhere where she would learn how to be with other kids. Here, it's just us and Mrs Hudson, and sometimes Molly or Janine."

Sherlock's brows knit together. "Is that really necessary? If we put our minds to it, I'm sure we can provide all the education and entertainment she requires."

"Yes, but I don't want her to just get along with adults."

"What if--" Sherlock swallows, "What if there's a problem?"

"What do you mean? What problem? You don't think there is something wrong with her, do you?" Protectiveness surges in.

Sherlock looks horrified. "No, no, that's not what I meant! I mean, what if it doesn't go well? What if the other children don't quite… What if she's bullied? What if she… what if she's like me?" His words are quiet.

"Like you… how?" John thinks he has an idea but needs to hear the words.

"Clearly, she's nothing like Eurus in all the good ways, and I think she's occasionally too badly behaved to be a small Mycroft — thank heavens for that — and if she was like me, it should have manifested by now, but sometimes children have… issues. Sometimes those issues don't become apparent until they are put together with other children."

Sherlock makes the concept of other children sound as distasteful as Mycroft had when discussing their childhood with John.

"Then we'll help her," John says determinedly. "That's what parents are for; they can help deal with things a child is unequipped for at that age. If she's bullied or something, we'll intervene."

He thinks it is entirely possible that his daughter might sometimes be the subject of negative attention and intrusive questions from other children because of her family. Same-sex couples are not that uncommon, but they're still not the norm. And he and Sherlock are not quite…

 _Not yet_ , a voice in John's head says. _I need to stop trying to define things that don't need defining. We're together. That's all people need to know. We love Rosie. That's what matters. The rest… we need time. But maybe…_

"I may find it hard to stay neutral in such a scenario," Sherlock admits. "If she's not treated well."

John looks at him and hears the words, really hears the words and the devotion and dedication behind them. Just like Sherlock had promised at the wedding, he would do everything in his power to defend and protect any Watson. _His last and most unbreakable vow_. "You can plot their murder while I talk to their parents?" John suggests with a smirk.

Sherlock picks up a stray Barbie shoe from the floor and tosses it close to where Rosie is sitting. "She's perfect. And brave. And clever. Which makes sense in a Watson, of course."

"And she gets stroppy, and she's brilliant, and loves creepy things, and is selective about which people she accepts, and she adores animals. Sounds like someone I know." His expression then sobers. "Sherlock; she wouldn't be here if I'd never met you. I'm absolutely convinced that's the truth. And if she turns out to be a bit different than most — and how could she not be, considering what sort of people she has in her lives — we're going to be there for her, and she's going to have one parent in particular who knows what it's like not to fit in. One parent who never did, but he never stopped trying and making sacrifices and forgiving things which shouldn't even be forgiven but he still does that for the people he wants in his life." He nudges Sherlock's elbow with his arm.

His reply is a quiet hum.

 

\-----------?-----------¿-----------?-----------

 

**— One month later —**

"I still don't understand why neither Mycroft nor your parents are attending," John says quietly as they follow the gravel path towards the church. John doesn't remember ever seeing a church tower with an embattlement, but then again, that feature is what Albury Church is famous for.

"It's hard to predict how people react," Sherlock says. "My parents thought it best not to come; they had some… altercations with Victor's parents back in the day when he was missing. All has been forgiven but not forgot. I have even considered whether it's appropriate for me to be here."

The church steps are high, so John whisks his daughter up into his arms. She has been uncharacteristically quiet during their walk from the car but then again, so has Sherlock. Rosie has proven herself extraordinarily sensitive to his moods, and he to hers.

"You were just a child. You lost Victor, too, and you never really got to grieve."

A vice suddenly grips John's heart when he suddenly realises there is another person Sherlock has lost and to whom that statement applies to. He had explicitly banned Sherlock from Mary's funeral in a furious text to Mycroft. There had been no reply, but his command had been obeyed. At the funeral, John had kept glancing around nearby trees, wondering if a familiar silhouette would briefly appear.

The sense of déjàvu was heavy. _'I heard you_ ', Sherlock had told him once, referring to his words at another burial site. John had been rather deaf after that, closing off his ears and his heart to whatever Sherlock had done and gone through.

Sherlock pinches his lips together and gives John a glance that is difficult to interpret. They make their way to the congregation assembly hell in a neighbouring, modern building and take up seats near the back in case Rosie gets rowdy and John needs to take her outside. He had nearly stayed home when a babysitter had cancelled, but Sherlock had said that both Watsons should attend, that he would preferit that way. Neither had mentioned the option of asking if Molly was available to take Rosie; John still feels hesitant to ask her for any sort of help, even if she does seem to have forgiven the burden John had placed on her and the way Sherlock had been forced to treat her by Eurus. She has understood their explanations but there is a new distance between her and them, now. Something needs to be done about that, but neither John nor Sherlock have proposed any viable plans. Maybe something is broken, now, in a way that cannot be fixed. So many things are.

John is hopeful, though, that his relationship with Sherlock is not one of them. The last weeks have been good. Really good.

"I think his parents suspected — just as ours did — or at least hoped that one of us children might have had a clue about what had happened to Victor. Then, too much time passed, and there was no reason to interact with them anymore."

According to Mycroft, all three Holmes children had been interviewed with the help of a forensic child psychiatrist, but Sherlock had been too distraught to give any sensible answers. Eurus had plenty to say, but none of it was understandable or useful.

The organ starts to play, but there are still thirty minutes to go before the ceremony.

Rosie wiggles out of John's lap and stands on the pew, watching the arriving attendees. John wonders if the atmosphere may be slightly lighter since so much time has passed since the child had gone missing — surely, it had not come as a surprise to anyone that he had passed away long ago. On the other hand, when John imagines himself in the position of Mr and Mrs Trevor, he realises that it may not matter if it's been hours or years. He would never stop looking for Rosie. Never. He is certain the same would apply to Sherlock.

Rosie plants her bottom between them on the pew and Sherlock lays a hand on her knee to stop her from kicking the board of the pew in front of them.

"Horsie!" she exclaims, pointing to a floor tile with a unicorn. The floor looks opulent in its rich orange and red tones.

"Technically, yes," Sherlock confirms. "A _unicorn_ ," he then corrects.

"Acorn!"

Sherlock's lip quicks up slightly.

They turn their phones on silent, Sherlock replies to a few case-related texts, and John keeps Rosie busy with a game on his own mobile. The remaining twenty minutes pass relatively quickly.

When the time comes, a minister appears in the front of the church and the doors are opened to the pallbearers. There are only two; according to Sherlock, the remains of Victor will be carried by his father and his brother. All that is left of him are bones which could have fit in a much smaller container but — as Sherlock likes to say — people are fond of rituals.

There is a photograph of Victor in the photocopied program sheet. Five years old, happy, dressed in a duffel coat and with dry leaves in his hair. Someone's shoe can be seen behind him, but whoever it is has been cut out of the picture. Judging by the size, it's another child. John has a hunch who that might be: Victor's best friend, a boy who was side-lined, shoved out, cut out, left lonely by the tragedy of Victor's disappearance.

Rosie is absolutely quiet as the coffin is carried to the altar. There's a sob from somewhere in the front, and it sounds like a dam had burst, as though it had been held back for a long time. John discreetly scans the crowd and notices a dark-haired, older woman in the front row, burying her nose into a tissue. _Victor's mother?_ The age would be about right.

John is not sure how he expects Sherlock to react. When he'd seen him in the front of Musgrave Hall after being pulled out of the well, he had looked exhausted and devastated and John is quite certain he'd been crying on the way back in the car, carefully concealing this from John. But had it been from grief about Victor, shock about Eurus, relief over how things had ended, or all those things? 

They'd spent the night at John's flat. After all, Baker Street was still a mess from the drone bomb. Sherlock had looked so forlorn, so out of place in the middle of all the furniture picked out by Mary that it had felt downright grotesque. _This isn't how it was supposed to go_ , John remembered thinking that night. Then again, when does life ever follow the predictable plans one hopes for? John's life certainly hadn't.

The minister begins: "We meet in the name of Jesus Christ, who died and was raised to the glory of God the Father. Grace and mercy be with you."

Rosie is tugging at a strand of her own hair, her gaze wandering the beautiful blue and orange ceiling.

"We have come here today to remember before God our brother Victor Alexander Trevor, to give thanks for his life, to commit him to God our merciful redeemer and judge---"

John watches Sherlock as the minister continues with the time-honoured words. He's biting his lip, breathing slightly faster than usual. John leans over Rosie, who is also watching Sherlock and picking up on the escalating distress on his features.

"It's alright," John whispers, and his words are directed to both the grieving man beside him and his daughter. He hates watching Sherlock like this, trying to contain himself. God knows he has suffered enough and on top of that, he's had to put his own life and his needs and his wants on hold for such a long time. First, the two years living as a vengeful ghost, then the following years tangled up in the tragedy John was constructing around his death and his resurrection. John would never have thought that holding the bones of a child would be the thing that made him realise there was nothing to forgive anymore between then. It had not just been the pain and suffering of his childhood which had suspended Sherlock in the past but also the secrets. John still has some atoning to do, but he's no longer afraid to speak his mind, to fulfil his promise of honesty, because the alternative is always worse, always leads to nothing good. How could he ever have doubted Sherlock's capability to understand what it was like to lose someone terribly important? Losing Victor had been so terrible that Sherlock had told himself a better story, a story he could live with, a story that wouldn't rip him into pieces. In a way, Sherlock's life had been largely defined by the kind of pain John had thought only he could understand when Sherlock had jumped and when Mary died. They _both_ lost Mary, and on top of that, John had told Sherlock that his grief was not real, that he did not deserve the right to express it.

John will spend the rest of his life proving that notion wrong.

They sit through various readings and prayers. When the choir begins a hymn, Sherlock swallows and his lips part. He exhales, squeezes his eyes shut, and the tears begin falling. Rosie is watching intently, and her lip begins quivering as well. John crinkles his nose, battling his own onset of emotion. Like father, like daughter — both are extraordinarily attuned to the moods of the strangest and most fascinating man they share their life with.

John wraps and arm around both Sherlock and Rosie who is determinedly climbing into Sherlock's lap, wrapping her tiny chubby arms around his neck. Sherlock hugs her tightly and it's hard to say which one of them is comforting which.

Sherlock doesn't look at John, but he leans into the hug.

  
  
\-----------?-----------¿-----------?-----------  
  


  
After the grave side ceremony and the lowering of the casket, the attendees leave their flowers by the open grave and then retreat to their cars. Rosie drops the small bouquet of violets John had bought down onto the coffin while John wonders how much she understands of all this. He had not tried to explain death to her — she's too young for such an abstract concept — but he had told her about a little boy called Victor and that they were going to say goodbye to him now, even though he had gone away a long time ago.

"Where?" Rosie had demanded.

John had glanced at Sherlock. He had been certain that any religious explanation would be met with an eyeroll.

"Nobody knows," Sherlock had said.

"Why?" Rosie wanted to know.

"Sometimes bad things happen to children," Sherlock said.

John had given him a stern look of warning.

"Where Victor?" Rosie had asked next, now directing his inquiries to Sherlock since he seemed more forthcoming.

Her pronunciation is outstanding for her age, largely thanks to Sherlock who insists that baby-talk is detrimental to human development and that Rosie is most certainly not too young to learn these things.

"He's in a nice place now," John promised.

"Why goodbye?"

"Because his Mummy and Daddy couldn't go there with him. And Sherlock couldn't, either, even though he was Victor's friend," John explained.

Sherlock went to the kitchen, busying himself with making tea even though they'd just had some.

Rosie quickly put two and two together. "Biscuit!" she squealed and ran after him, leaving John relieved that he didn't have to try to explain further the complex issues of the afterlife. Now, Rosie does not seem too confused by the fact that they're standing beside a hole in the ground, throwing flowers on a coffin. Sherlock hadn't bought any. She tugs at Sherlock's coat sleeve and he picks her up.

The woman John had spotted in the front pew of the church and a man he assumes is Victor's father walk up to them. They had been glancing at Sherlock before, during the part of the ceremony held here in the churchyard.

Before either of them speak Sherlock throws in the expected: "I'm sorry for your loss." His tone is calm, gravely and well-rehearsed. John has heard his speak this phrase countless times before when interviewing the family members of case victims. This time, though it's formal, it doesn't sound like a social script being quickly executed before Sherlock could move the conversation to more pressing matters.

"Thank you," Mr Trevor replies. "I'm glad you came. You were Victor's best friend." Mrs Trevor looks away, tears overwhelming her again.

"And who is this young lady?" Mister Trevor asks in a playful tone, his voice slightly hoarse from emotion already expelled.

He gently grabs Rosie's shoe and she giggles, then shyly buries her face in Sherlock's curls.

"This is Rosamund," Sherlock says.

Mrs Trevor gives her a red-eyed smile. "She's yours?" she then asks and does not sound surprised.

How different the grown Sherlock must be to that little boy they had known, John realises. The two boys had had their whole lives ahead of them, all the promise and potential still there. Every parent hopes that a child will grow and learn, choose a vocation they enjoy, find a special someone and perhaps start a family of their own. Those who have met Sherlock during his troubled adult life would be greatly surprised to see him voluntarily spend time with an infant, but not the Trevors.

If it wasn't for Mary, Rosie would not be here. If it wasn't for Moriarty, John would not have met Mary. If it wasn't for Eurus, Moriarty would never have tried to destroy Sherlock so completely. What Eurus was, what she _is_ , is in no way Sherlock's fault — he is one of her victims. She is the start of the chain that has led to this day, and despite all the pain along the way, Sherlock is slowly getting his life back on track. John wouldn't trade away a single moment with Rosie, nor would he a single moment with Sherlock. If he hadn't met Sherlock, he would not have Rosie in his life. _She is as much his as she is mine and Mary's._

"Yes," John tells the Trevors _and_ Sherlock; "For all intents and purposes, yes, she is."

This is his family, now. It may not be the most ordinary one, or the easiest to manage, but John is hardly the easiest and most ordinary of men. And, it had taken a certain Sherlock Holmes for him to learn that lesson.

 

 

**_——— The End ———_ **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story wouldn't have happened if my husband hadn't introduced me to the written and televised works of Derren Brown. Many of his books, shows and interviews are quoted in Mandrake's statements. I am also indebted to the wonderful James Bryant to whom I got to pose a pivotal question regarding hypnosis and memory erasure at Worldcon in 2017. 
> 
> 7PercentSolution provided pivotal beta assistance, particularly with case-related plothole-plugging, ASilverGirl provided a set of very expert eyeballs, and the rest of The Coven cheered me on like they always do, as did 88thparallel and Elldotsee. Couldn't do this without you.
> 
> The song Sherlock and John discover they know without remembering how is "Valparaiso" by Sting.  
>  _And every road I walked would take me down to the sea_  
>  _With every broken promise in my sack_  
>  _And every love would always send the ship of my heart_  
>  _Over the rolling sea_  
>  _If I should die_  
>  _And water's my grave_  
>  _She'll never know if I'm damned or I'm saved_  
>  _See the ghost fly over the sea_


End file.
